Latest / The Catholic Current / LTACL: Freedom from Evil? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.)
Transcript
- 0:00You guys asked for it, so I'm gonna do it. Not long ago,
- 0:03I did a video about, uh, spiritual warfare,
- 0:07pushing back against evil, rooting sin out
- 0:11of our own lives. And part of that battle,
- 0:14part of that struggle, is to recognize that we are in
- 0:18an environment that hates goodness.
- 0:22That doesn't just hate goodness, but it hates
- 0:26life itself. Oh, Father, come on.
- 0:30Is that really possible? You know, you Catholics, you all,
- 0:34you Christians, you're all caught up with your mythology and,
- 0:37and, and your, your boogeyman, your devil with
- 0:40the big fangs and, and the point and the pointy ears
- 0:44and, and the horns and the pitchfork. No, it's not
- 0:48what I'm talking about. Uh, evil is real. Evil can
- 0:51be influential. And sometimes evil carries
- 0:56a lawyer's briefcase. What am I talking about? Stay with me,
- 0:59I've got a story to tell. Hi, I'm Jesuit Father Robert McHake,
- 1:03your host every day of The Catholic Current, coming to you from the Station of
- 1:06the Cross Catholic Media Network. Let's take a closer look. Glad you're
- 1:10here. There is a lawsuit,
- 1:13a trial taking place in California as, as I speak,
- 1:18and it involves the state attorney general and his minions suing
- 1:222 crisis pregnancy centers. Why?
- 1:26Well, they offer something called APR,
- 1:29abortion pill reversal. Now, since the overturning of Roe v.
- 1:33Wade, a lot of abortion clinics have gone
- 1:37out of business. A lot of those Planned Parenthood clinics— and we do all sorts
- 1:41of care, and we do cancer screening, and abortion is a small part of our
- 1:44business model, blah blah blah— but as soon as in-person abortion became
- 1:49hard to manage and not profitable, they packed up and went away.
- 1:53So the alternative now is the abortion pill, and the abortion pill is
- 1:57sold really as a kind of a hallucinogen that you
- 2:01can just take a pill and suddenly you become
- 2:05not pregnant. What you really do when you take the pills,
- 2:08you sign up for an at-home chemically induced abortion without
- 2:12any medical assistance, and it's monstrous
- 2:16and it's dangerous, and we'll get into all of that another
- 2:20time. Time. Now, if you take the— that abortion pill and
- 2:25you have second thoughts, there's a window of opportunity where you can take a pill
- 2:28to stop the process and you can keep your pregnancy.
- 2:32And that's what these 2 clinics do in California. So the Attorney General
- 2:37is suing these companies for $20 million for
- 2:42false business practices and misrepresentation and bad medicine and etc., etc.
- 2:46A friend of mine who's an attorney has been attending the trial, has been sending
- 2:50me information. We'll have some information in the notes as well.
- 2:53And it's really clear that the Attorney General's minions
- 2:57are basically lying through their teeth. Uh,
- 3:01they're presenting false studies as evidence. And here's the really interesting
- 3:05thing: they're suing these crisis
- 3:09pregnancy centers, trying to get them out of business for harming women.
- 3:13And the number of women in California who filed complaints against them has been
- 3:17a big fat Zero. They can
- 3:21identify no harm at all.
- 3:24Whereas the crisis pregnancy centers can get lots of women and say,
- 3:28I'm really glad I'm— they helped me undo
- 3:32a tragic decision. And my friend
- 3:36was there and he says, I don't understand what motivates them. Why, why are
- 3:40they doing this if they're really about reproductive freedom and the power of choice?
- 3:45Then why are they doing this? Why is the entire
- 3:50state of California going after these 2 crisis pregnancy centers? And I told them,
- 3:53I said, look, you have to understand, the whole game
- 3:57is undone if anyone anywhere
- 4:02even appears to accord any value
- 4:06to the life in the womb.
- 4:10Their whole worldview is undone.
- 4:14Their business model is at risk if anyone anywhere
- 4:18is allowed to appear to accord value to
- 4:22life in the womb. And that's ugly, and that's evil,
- 4:26and that's wicked. But let me add another layer.
- 4:29This is where I think there's tragedy involved. He said
- 4:33the lawyers for the state, they were all women,
- 4:36and they were all very very angry.
- 4:42And I know a lot of the people who really hate,
- 4:45uh, crisis pregnancy centers, hate the movement of abortion
- 4:49pill reversal, they're all very angry too.
- 4:54I'm just wondering, I have no idea,
- 4:57just wondering, did any of
- 5:01those people have abortions?
- 5:04Did any of those people encourage others to have abortion?
- 5:09What if you had an abortion? What if you encouraged others to
- 5:13have an abortion and you had regret, you had
- 5:17doubt, you had shame,
- 5:20and you had absolutely no awareness
- 5:24of the mercy of God?
- 5:29Speaking as a sinner, I can say that would be unbearable.
- 5:37If there is no possibility of a just God
- 5:41who is merciful, then confronting your own conscience is
- 5:45unbearable, and unbearable, and you have to make
- 5:49any choices to the contrary hidden and
- 5:54stopped. You have to take your own sin and
- 5:57make it the obvious choice— not even a choice,
- 6:01inevitable. And so these clinics presenting
- 6:05women with real alternatives to avoid tragedy, they get
- 6:09in the way. They're a mortal threat to their worldview,
- 6:12their self-concept. They'd have to confront sin. They might have
- 6:16to face God and ask for mercy.
- 6:20And poor souls in the grip of evil find that
- 6:24unbearable. So God bless the
- 6:28Thomas More Society who's representing, uh, these good clinics. Let's continue
- 6:32to pray for them. Let's continue to support for them. Let's pray
- 6:36for those poor tortured souls who have
- 6:40the grimmest of regrets and don't yet
- 6:43know of a just God who is merciful.
- 6:48Let's intercede for them. Let's make reparation
- 6:52for them. Let's invite them into the body
- 6:56of Christ. Meanwhile, this, uh,
- 7:00court story continues to unfold. We'll be watching
- 7:04it. Think on these things today. Take them to prayer and talk about it
- 7:07with those you love. Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I
- 7:11am a sinner.