IWKnights Corner (Bulletin Insert) For January 19, 2020

Did you know this about the IW Knights of Columbus?

We have found that the editor of the KofC on-line magazine Columbia, Alton Pelowski, is an good source of thought on Catholic cultural issues, his editorial in this month's edition follows:

"SOME GAMES are finite: They have well-defined rules, objectives, opponents and endpoints. Baseball and bingo have clear winners and losers — but as author Simon Sinek observes in his bestselling new book The Infinite Game, most things in life are not so simple.  In business, for instance, parameters and players are constantly changing, and the “game” doesn’t end.  Effective and visionary leadership, Sinek argues, requires an infinite mindset, looking beyond finite goals and staying focused on a “just cause,” even if it may never be fully realized.

As I was reading Sinek’s book, the pro-life movement came to mind almost immediately.  For nearly five decades, one of the movement’s primary goals has been to reverse the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.  To be sure, overturning Roe is a critical step that would save many lives — but to think that the victory would then be won, and the mission complete, would be a grave mistake.  In a “post-Roe world,” abortion would remain unrestricted in many states. According to a July 2019 study conducted at Middlebury College, the short-term effect would be only a 12.8% reduction in the abortion rate nationwide

It is important to remember that laws have an impact on culture, and they are also a reflection of it.  This was apparent when Roe v. Wade was nearly overturned once before, with the Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.  The court’s opinion noted that 'for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.'

From 1992 to 2017, the number of surgical abortions reported annually in the United States fell by nearly a half million, from 1,359,145 to 862,320.  There are various reasons for this decline, including life-saving legislation, but one key factor is infinite-minded leadership.  Consider, for example, all of the life-affirming medical clinics and pregnancy centers that today empower abortion vulnerable women to choose life — in many cases with help from ultrasound machines funded by the Knights of Columbus.  As many pro-life leaders have said, the goal is not simply to make abortion illegal, but to make it unthinkable.

In the end, the heart of the abortion debate is deeper than a question of science (when life begins) or of law (a so-called right to abortion).  Rather, it is a question about the very nature of freedom, sexuality and what it means to be human.  An adequate response requires the proclamation of the Gospel of Life in word and deed — a mission that is beautifully expressed in the work of the Sisters of Life and others, but which is also the responsibility of us all.  There is no greater just cause than building an authentic culture of life — and even when Roe is eventually overturned, our work will have only just begun."

Read the more about the Knights of Columbus at www.IWKnights.com/bulletin or at facebook.com/IWknights9981 and NOW on Twitter at twitter.com/IwKnights.

Links Related to this week’s column:

Abortion and the ‘Infinite Game’
	A Knights of Columbus' Columbia Magazine Editorial
		By Alton Pelowski, Editor (6/1/2019)
			SOME GAMES are finite: They have well-defined rules, objectives,  opponents and endpoints. Baseball and bingo have clear winners and losers — but as author Simon Sinek observes in his bestselling new book The Infinite Game, most things in life are not so simple. In business, for instance, parameters and players are constantly changing, and the “game” doesn’t end. Effective and visionary leadership, Sinek argues, requires an infinite mindset, looking beyond finite goals and staying focused on a “just cause,” even if it may never be fully realized.......
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