The director of The Lincoln Forum, our Board Chairman Dr. J. David Franks, considers solidarity through the lens of Dostoyevsky's striking concept of love in The Brothers Karamazov. This, and other readings, are part of our Social Ethics and Pro-Life Solidarity Certificate at MCFL. We welcome you to join the conversation that is creating a more just world, in-person, or remotely. If online, use #ReVitalize and #MassProLife to follow along.

Solidarity

By J. David Franks, Ph.D.

To be truly pro-life means to respond to the claim made on us by the other: to be responsible to and for the lives of others. And, somehow, we must know this without becoming sanctimonious.

This is the summit of wisdom, as Dostoevsky has Elder Zosima express it. He speaks of monks in a monastery, but we must see how this truth transposes to the pro-life sentinels of human dignity. We belong to the vanguard not because we are innocent of all the anguish of the world, but because we cannot escape our implication in that anguish.

by C.J. Williams, Director of Community Engagement, MCFL

A religious faith is not necessary to the individual position that abortion is wrong. But the Christian tenet that human lives are inimitable, imago dei, and irrepeatably precious, certainly seems like a good faith-based foundation for it. 

So what are many good apparently faith-rooted ministers doing opposing pro-life laws, and speaking out in favor of taking a vulnerable human life?

This is one great puzzle our Board Chairman explores in his recent article published in The Society of Saint Sebastian.