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Abortion new frontier in civil rights
By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
February 7, 2008
Through the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders, the civil rights movement gained moral and social victory in its fight for equal rights.
But black Americans still face a terrible threat today, said Legionary of Christ Father Andrew McNair, homilist at the Jan. 21 Mass celebrating the life and contributions of King.
“Since 1973, this evil plague has killed twice as many blacks than have died from heart disease, cancer, accidents, violent crimes and AIDS combined. This evil that I speak of kills about 1,450 blacks every day in this country.” Fr. McNair said.
“If this evil goes unchecked, unchallenged, it will annihilate the black community and our hopes for a better future in this country,” he said. “What is this unprecedented evil that I speak against? It’s called abortion.”
Many of the congregants were surprised at Fr. McNair’s choice of topic for the homily, but their response was overwhelmingly positive, said Isaiah “Kit” Marshall, director of the Office of Black Catholic Ministry, which co-sponsored the Mass. The following day was the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
“A number of people have asked for a copy of the homily,” he said. “The information about the abortion situation, most of us didn’t know those facts. We plan to take information from his homily and share that with people in the Valley.”
James Boozer — who sings in the Freedom Choir, which provided music for the Mass at St. Mary’s Basilica — said that he first thought Fr. McNair was going to talk about the threat of AIDS, drugs or violence within the black community.
“He pulled us in when he talked about this insidious threat and destruction of the black community,” Boozer said. “The homily was exciting and interesting.”
Fr. McNair also said that history tends to gloss over the importance King’s faith played in his fight for civil rights.
“First of all, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was much more than a social activist,” Fr. McNair said. “He was above all a man of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, and an ordained minister and pastor of a church.”
In fact, modern America seems to forget that the whole civil rights movement was based on an understanding of the God-granted dignity of every person, he said.
“The duty of the state is to recognize the dignity that God has given us,” he said. “The civil rights movement challenged the state to recognize and to protect by law the rights God gave everyone. In other words, blacks placed God firmly at the center of the civil rights movement as a faith-based movement.”
But now it is the unborn whose God-given right to life is being denied, Fr. McNair said in closing.
“I don’t know how many years of life I have, but one thing is certain: I will use the remaining years of my life to fight this evil and build a culture of life in our community,” he said. “However, I cannot do it alone. I need your help. Please help me to help our unborn children.”
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, main celebrant at the Mass, said it is important to gather and give thanks to God for men, who, like King, fought so hard for the dignity of the human person.
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