Intelligence, Money not Enough to Win Pro-Life War

Author Michael O'Brien to LSN Staff: Intelligence, Money not Enough to Win Pro-Life War: The pro-life battle will only be won if we embrace Christ’s Cross, become “the poor and despised of the world,” and “listen ... to the promptings of the Holy Spirit,” said acclaimed author and artist Michael O’Brien.

O’Brien said that rallying our gifts and powers to resist evil is “a natural reaction to a war-zone.” “Instinctively we gather our weapons – my intelligence, my money, my organizational skills – ... to galvanize resistance ... to create organizations, to effect changes in society,” he explained. But, insisted the author, “it is not the foundation. It is not the foundation. ... It will never be enough. It will not win this war.”

He read a passage from the Letter to the Corinthians, where St. Paul writes: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27).

We must unite ourselves with Christ on the Cross, he said, which “means we too will be humiliated, in public, as he was.” “You too will be lied about, misrepresented, judged falsely, sometimes judged correctly to our own embarrassment,” he continued. “To be exposed in the war zone, to be a poor man, weak, powerless by human terms, puts everything to the test within us.”

O’Brien noted that in the “intensity of the battles” the pro-life movement fights, we can easily lose sight of the spiritual nature of our cause. “We can become activists, and purely activists, and lose this dimension of union with Jesus Christ, who is the warrior, who is the one who will win this war.”