{"id":59942,"date":"2011-07-01T07:01:43","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T07:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thesmokingpriest\/?p=59942"},"modified":"2011-07-01T07:01:43","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T07:01:43","slug":"abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html","title":{"rendered":"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness\u201d (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are impossible without the fundamental right to life.\u00a0 The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights.\u00a0 All other rights depend upon the right to life.\u00a0 Abortion is a horrific evil claiming over 4,000 lives every day. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">If anyone has the right to terminate the life of an innocent human being, not only are those who are being terminated no longer equal under the law, but proponents of abortion are laying the ground work for choices to be made about the extermination of other groups of people. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Man is not autonomous.\u00a0 He is created by God and therefore, must live in union with his creator.\u00a0 When humanity rebels against God the results are obvious for all to see in the news every day. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">James Madison, the fourth president of our nation and one of our founding fathers once said, &#8220;We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The first civil war took place from 1861 \u2013 1865.\u00a0 The horror of slavery was not the only cause of the war, but it was certainly the main issue at hand. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The new civil war has no army and has no set territories. It is a cultural war that knows no boundaries.\u00a0 The battle between the culture of life and the culture of death affects every city, every family, every business, every school, and every church community.\u00a0 This new civil war is even more intense than the first one. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The culture war of today is dramatic and very challenging.\u00a0 \u00a0What will bring about a new birth of freedom and morality? <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">America will change if Americans get back to God. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>\u201cIf my people who bear my name, humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I myself will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land\u201d<\/em> (Second Book of Chronicles: 7; 14). <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Today, faithful Catholics face a battle on two fronts: the culture war in society and the polarization in our own Church.\u00a0 Too many Catholics are pro-abortion.\u00a0 Too many members of the clergy refuse to take stand against abortion and against pro-abortion Catholic politicians. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">We need to bring the cause of life to the streets.\u00a0 We need to challenge the conscience of a nation.\u00a0\u00a0 &#8220;Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion&#8221; &#8211; Blessed Mother Teresa<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness\u201d (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are impossible without the fundamental right to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,15,37],"tags":[86,35,38],"class_list":["post-59942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-spirituality","category-evangelization","category-magisterium","category-pro-life-issues","tag-abortion","tag-culture-of-life","tag-july-4th"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July - The Smoking Priest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July - The Smoking Priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness\u201d (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are impossible without the fundamental right to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Smoking Priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-01T07:01:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Father James Farfaglia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July - The Smoking Priest","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July - The Smoking Priest","og_description":"\u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness\u201d (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are impossible without the fundamental right to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html","og_site_name":"The Smoking Priest","article_published_time":"2011-07-01T07:01:43+00:00","author":"Father James Farfaglia","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html","name":"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July - The Smoking Priest","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-01T07:01:43+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-01T07:01:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/#\/schema\/person\/5ba36445fd924e8858c4ed757531d02c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/07\/abortion-culture-wars-and-the-fourth-of-july.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Abortion, Culture Wars and the Fourth of July"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/","name":"The Smoking Priest","description":"Just another Beliefnet Blog site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/#\/schema\/person\/5ba36445fd924e8858c4ed757531d02c","name":"Father James Farfaglia","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fe4\/fe492cc6d06474fdf10dd185cec77b83x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fe4\/fe492cc6d06474fdf10dd185cec77b83x96.jpg","caption":"Father James Farfaglia"},"description":"Father James Farfaglia is the founding pastor of Saint Helena of the True Cross of Jesus Catholic Church. He is presently the new pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. Both parishes are located in Corpus Christi, Texas. You can learn more about Father James, read his homilies and purchase his books by visiting him on the web at www.fatherjames.org.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.fatherjames.org"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/author\/jfarfaglia"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59943,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59942\/revisions\/59943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}