Life After Death

is something Cosmopolitan calls a 'sexy, loving, fulfilling relationship'." Anne Applebaum, The Sunday Telegraph (23.11.97), in an article adapted from her essay in The British Woman Today, a survey by the Social Affairs Unit, published 24.11.97 Patience and CARE Patience is the power to accept personal suffering and share in the suffering of others. It is, as we say, a virtue, or strength, one that is found at the heart of the Christian faith, in the life and death of Christ, and in the Gospels. Paul tells us that we should glory in suffering, knowing that it produces patience; that patience produces character and experience, and that experience in turn brings hope (Romans 5, iii). Yet all too often the world sees it rather differently. Patience is seen not so much as a strength but a weakness, something that makes those who profess it, 'a bit of a pushover'. Meekness is perhaps even more misunderstood, not so much as a quality of gentleness, but as the weakness of lack of determination making those who aspire to it seem once again, 'a bit of a pushover'. Yet there it is in the Beatitudes, followed immediately by Jesus' encouragement of those "who hunger and thirst after justice", and alongside other qualities which reveal the complex, inseparable whole that is Christian virtue. If we are not driven by compassion, we lack love. If we are not driven by justice, we lack passion. If we are not driven by anger, we lack courage. And without the integrity of all these things, which Christ alone can give us, then we lack full humanity. The thirty years that have passed since the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act have been characterised by a terrifying destruction of life and, as we now begin to realise, equally terrifying omens for the future of humanity. Perhaps we have been a pushover. Meekness and patience would be much less misunderstood if the world saw more evidence that we do genuinely hunger and thirst after justice; that we are capable of showing more passion for righteousness in the face of persecution and contempt, and more decent human anger. There is much for which we can give thanks. But Christianity does not give us a right to measure our own successes. Our failures are another matter - a matter for private, personal reflection on just how much more we might have done. We must take heart and ask for God's help in the next stage of the battle for life. The word virtue, which embraces all the qualities of the Beatitudes, comes from a Latin word which means 'manhood'. We can forgive the Romans if they were not quite politically correct in identifying the best of human qualities with just one sex! But perhaps we can add a different perspective to the discussion. Abortionism does not liberate women. In accepting it, women have submitted to State approval for a brutalising, jackboot masculinity. It leads to a cynical hardness that invades dignity and personhood as surely as it invades flesh and blood. It expects no link, and sharply severs the civilised connection between virtue and manhood. Here, truly, is the opposite of women's liberation. In seeking to balance compassion and anger, CARE decided to move the spotlight to show our deepest concern for women, and for the physical, emotional and spiritual damage done to them by abortion. In concentrating on this damage, we seek to