A Pro-Life Strategy for an Apostolic Missionary Age: Lessons from Chesterton and Pope St. John Paul II

Rath, Beth A.

doi:10.5840/acpq2025513313

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 99, Issue 2, Spring 2025

Distributism

Beth A. Rath

Pages 297-313

https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq2025513313

A Pro-Life Strategy for an Apostolic Missionary Age
Lessons from Chesterton and Pope St. John Paul II

With fifty years of the Roe v. Wade decision teaching Americans that abortion is not only morally permissible but also a fundamental human right, present attempts to enact laws that restrict or prohibit abortion at the state and federal levels are likely to be futile. In this paper, I argue that the pro-life movement today may need to pivot away from focusing on legislation in the short term in order to address the deeper problems that mark the current American moral ethos. To this end, I first consider this ethos in light of the decline of a so-called “Christendom culture.” In the next section, I point to the loss of political friendship as one aspect of the post-Christendom age. After sketching Aristotle’s account of political friendship, I point to some deficiencies that are obstacles to political friendship today. Finally, I offer some modest suggestions for a pro-life strategy in the present “Apostolic Missionary Age,” drawing lessons from G. K. Chesterton’s distributism and Pope St. John Paul II’s Veritatis splendor.

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