The news along the Culture of Life front, over recent years, has not been encouraging. Abortion, euthanasia, contraception, divorce, same-sex “marriage,” and the threat to religious freedom are problems that seem to be more entrenched than ever before in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” It is easy to become discouraged.
News of hope is heartily welcomed even though pro-life advocates understand that good will ultimately prevail over evil. If, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn has said, “One word of truth outweighs the world,” then, we can say that one ray of hope can revive a sinking spirit. Good news is always percolating beneath the surface, though we cannot expect the mainstream media to be its deliverer.
In April of 2013, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview awarded the William Wilberforce Award to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. This is a happy confluence of diverse, yet morally united personages.
Chuck Colson, as most people know, was a special counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1968-1973 and was the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges. He converted to Christianity in 1973 and founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which has since become the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families. He is the author of 23 books which, collectively, have sold more than 5 million copies.
In 1993, Colson was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. His commitment to the Culture of Life is unquestioned: “The pro-life agenda has no meaning apart from its being rooted in absolute truth, in self-evident truths — truths that are true because they’re true, not because somebody says they are true.” He left this world on April 21, 2012.
William Wilberforce, 1759-1833, also underwent a conversion, becoming an evangelical Christian. He regretted his past ways and resolved to commit his future life and work to the service of God. As a man of unflagging commitment, he headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. He continued to work for the complete abolition of slavery which led to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of this Act through Parliament was assured. In a speech before the House of Commons, on April 18, 1791, he said: “Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied.”
The Wilberforce Award honored Cardinal Dolan for his defense of religious liberty against the attack on conscience presented by government mandated insurance coverage of abortion pills, contraception, and sterilization. In his acceptance speech, Cardinal Dolan expressed his gratitude to evangelicals present for their “dynamic emphasis on evangelicalism.” The archbishop noted that Blessed John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis have all insisted very strongly on the importance of a new evangelization.
Colson, Wilberforce, and Dolan make a formidable tandem, representing a diverse, yet unwavering commitment to the pro-life cause. Together, and allied to the Church’s three recent popes, they offer a powerful image of hope for a world that is reeling with discouragement.
The good archbishop may have surprised his audience when he confessed that neither his award nor his participation in the conclave was, over the past few months, his most joyous event. His happiest day came on Easter Monday when he baptized his newest grandnephew (and despite the fact that the seven pound child, Charles Kenneth Grissom, threw up on him). “The human project,” he explained to his audience, “is all about babies! Culture is all about babies! Our lives are at their best when centered not upon ourselves but upon babies!”
God sent prophets, judges, kings, and other dignitaries into the world to deliver His message. They achieved limited success. But when He sent a baby into the world, a baby that was the Christ child, this was the birth of Christianity. A baby coming into the world is a birth, but also the re-birth of hope and of the kind of unselfish love that is at the heart of the Culture of Life.
The baby is at the core of the Culture of Life and Christianity is there to honor and protect it. The 2013 Wilberforce Award is a timely and much needed boost for all those who have experienced discouragement in working for the Culture of Life.
Dr. Donald DeMarco is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, CT, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad and Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart are available through Amazon.com.
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