Moderation: A forgotten legacy from President Eisenhower
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations….we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. [Italcs mine] Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
His Farewell Address to this nation is prescient and eerily relevant. We’ll return to it shortly. First though, Eisenhower’s successful battle over himself is one that begs for our attention. Overcoming Eisenhower’s childhood outbursts of explosive anger led to what looked like a natural gift for moderation: a forgotten legacy.
In a recent post, I wrote of my fascination with the man who headed up the largest land invasive force in human history and then became one of the politicians he claimed to detest: Dwight D Eisenhower.He then worked assiduously for peace and disarmament because he could see the dangers of the growing military-industrial complex and its stranglehold over nations.
After reading Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower followed by Eisenhower: Soldier and President, I realize it’s a fascination once held by the entire world.
These two books are tomes, Stephen Ambrose’s detailed biographies are exhaustive and his objectivity commendable. While Ambrose makes patently clear his admiration–perhaps love–for his subject, he doesn’t diminish Eisenhower’s flaws, which were many. Rather Ambrose works to stand under (understand) them In so doing, he makes his reader do the same thus forcing a different perspective. And for me, to come to a different understanding of the politics of abortion.
Huh?
One of ‘Ike’s most criticized inactions
was on segregation: Brown vs Department of Education. Earl Warren had been installed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by President Eisenhower. But Warren’s declaration that ‘separate but equal’ was an infringement of the Fourteenth Ammenment of the Constitution shocked President Eisenhower. Unequivocally, he declared his responsibility as Chief Executive was to enforce the law of the land, But he expressed his profound sympathy for a culture with “deep ruts of prejudice and emotionalism that had been built up over the years in this problem…’He wanted moderation on the race issue.”
In a personal letter to a friend, Eisenhower wrote that “no single event has so disturbed the domestic scene…as dd the Supreme Curt’s decision of 1954 in the school segregation case.” Author Stephen Ambrose further quotes Eisenhower’s words to his friend, Swede. “Laws are rarely effective unless they represent the will of the majority. Further, ‘when emotions are deeply stirred,’ progress must be gradual and take into account ‘human feelings.’ Otherwise, we will have a ‘disaster.’ The south had lived for almost under 100 years under segregation. “It was impossible to expect instant reversal of condict by mere decision of the Supreme Court.”
It’s impossible for me to ignore the parallels between Brown vs Education and Roe vs Wade and, in my own mind, at least, consider moderation, a forgotten legacy when thinking about and speaking with my friends who insist that abortion is a protected right. Almost all have children and none has ever had an abortion and yet they are vehement about “my body, my choice.” I speak of something around fifteen to twenty women somewhere around my age, ranging from “Christian” to wholly non-religious whose “No, I have not done it but others must have the right!” has been puzzling and troubling.
Until a long-ago friend’s visit coupled with Ike’s wisdom. My friend, whom I’ll call Sally, read one of my books, before she came to visit, the one where I explain walking away and then running back to God. The one where I explain why I aborted my baby.
Taking into account human feelings
My rebellion against all things religious and being a submissive female began in my teens. While that of the friends mentioned above happened gradually, during marriage and motherhood. Thus immersing them in an incremental, insidious quasi-godlessness hardly noticed. My decades of atheism, on the other hand, created a profound horror of sin, making me profoundly aware of my capacity for falling into it.
“Where else can we go Lord?” That peculiar calculus of salvation: faith precedes knowledge of sin.
My friend Sally’s explanation of remaining “Christian” without believing in God’s law helps me sympathize with “human feelings.” President Eisenhower ntellectually saw the wrongness of segregation. But his southern upbringing precluded use of force. Just so, I see that Sally and all my pro-choice friends are immersed in the deeply emotional and confounding politics of five decades of equalty, abruptly ripped away. The baby’s an afterthought. It’s a place words where words bounce off. And so we shout across a chasm at one another.
It’s a place that can be accessed only through the heart, not with reason, but the Spirit of Christ.
“This is unlawful, outrageous!
There is little more seductive to our fallen intellects than the tribes of Us vs Them: moral outrage.
And it’s just those legalistic extremes that our Lord condemned. Jesus’ summary passage to the Pharisee and Scribes whose zeal eclipsed love speaks loudly to all.
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
Hostile global ideology.
“We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. [Italcs mine] Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake…”
It’s taken seventy years for Eisenhower’s prophetic words to bloom. Where the Clinton’s qualified abortion to be”safe and rare”, we now have “reproductive rights” in the Department of Justice. This nifty legal terminology permits abortion clinic sidewalk prayer warriors to be indicted in a conspiracy against rights.
Whistleblowers testifying that children’s hospitals that ignore state laws against mutilating children due to “gender dysphoria” have been indicted by the Department of Justice.
Pregnancy centers are attacked by activists and Democratic state governments with impunity
And yet, it looks like once again, like four years ago, half of Catholics will vote Democrat according to the EWTN survey of 1000 Catholics. How could so many American Catholics vote for a party platform contrary to God’s Law and a jurisdictional plan that nullifies the Church’s teaching?”
“Donald Trump is crass, rude and obnoxious.”
“Trump is bombastic and annoying.”
“Trump’s a womanizer and brags about it.”
“Harris is easier to look at and listen to.”
All these comments and many more are understandable. But this election cannot be about our feelings.
Robert Malone, a physician scientist has explained clearly why he endorses Donald Trump. Please read and consider his points, carefully, thoughtfully.
We must defend the truth boldy, fearlessly.
How?
“Lord, I believe! Help me in my unbelief.”
Remember the mute son possessed by demons? From the Gospel of Mark:
“Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit.
Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.”
He said to them in reply, “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.”
They brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions. As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around and foam at the mouth.
Then he questioned his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” He replied, “Since childhood.
It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
Jesus said to him, “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”
Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
At our baptism, we were infused with the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Virtues that must be strengthened with prayer, fasting and penance.
Everything is possible to one who has faith.
Gospel of Mark
Bishop Barron quotes Paul Tillich’: “Faith is the most misunderstood word in the religious vocabulary.”
