Editorial

An American Lament

While rightly concentrating on the need to rebuild our nation's moral order, Catholics should not overlook the damage done by US foreign policy.

On the international front, our country is aligned with--indeed, more often than not, is leading--the forces of the culture of death.

As an American editor, serving a predominantly American audience, I look over the list of contents for this month's issue, and hang my head in shame.

These are not good times of patriotic Americans. On the national front, our political news is dominated by tawdry scandals. On the international front, our country is aligned with--indeed, more often than not, is leading--the forces of the culture of death. Our domestic problems are clear to anyone who reads the newspapers; this magazine exposes just some of our government's international misdeeds.

The same newspapers which detail the latest scandals in Washington also give us regular glimpses of the massive suffering in sub-Saharan Africa. Our Dossier looks beyond those superficial reports, however, and finds a distinct measure of Western complicity. Decades after the end of the colonial era, Americans and Europeans alike still tend to view Africa as a land of opportunities and dangers, rather than a continent peopled by our brothers and sisters in Christ. Perhaps we have not been guilty of exploiting these poor countries in the crudest sense predicted by Marxist dogma, but certainly our national policies have not been dictated by the corporal works of mercy.

The crassly materialistic principles which dictate our policies toward Africa can be seen even more clearly in the American approach to China. Our political leaders, on both sides of the aisle, are keenly interested in the prospects for corporate development of that massive market; they appear far less concerned about the brutal policies of the Beijing regime, or the suffering of its subjects.

It is both revealing and depressing that the American ambassador, who could discourse at length on Chinese transgressions of international copyright laws, has nothing to say about the persecution of Christian churches. Alas, that case is not unique. The blind spot in US human-rights policy is also evident in Washington's indifference to the plight of repressed Christians in Kenya, in Sudan, and in Indonesia.

How could a powerful nation, populated primarily by professed Christians, ignore the persecution of Christians in other lands? How did the United States sink into such moral desuetude? The responses to a Roper survey commissioned by Catholic World Report--featured in the last issue, and revisited this month--might offer one important clue. Most Catholic Americans, it appears, are perfectly willing to profess their faith--as long as it does not affect their own lives; far too few are willing to sacrifice their comfort for their beliefs. And perhaps, having recently read our Lord's gentle rebuke to the apostles who accompanied him into the Garden of Gethsemane, we should not be surprised by that phenomenon.

For those Americans ready to "resist unto blood," there are two clear options. We can do our utmost to restore moral order in our own society, or at least we can warn other nations about the dangers of following in our footsteps. Our Interview this month presents an organization dedicated to the first option, working to restore the integrity of the family; unexpectedly, the group has found itself drawn into international affairs, to follow the second option as well. There is a heartening message here: a reminder that even our failures can be used for the good--that "in God everything works for good with those who love him." (Rom 8:28)

Still more heartening is the story recounted in our Follow Up feature. It is a tale of conversion: a tale that is as old and familiar as the Gospel, yet one which never loses its ability to surprise and inspire us each time it is told in a new setting. If a notorious abortionist can find his way to the baptismal font, surely our country can recover its moral bearings and be reborn--as Bernard Nathanson has been reborn--as a powerful force for life and for justice.

There will be a fearful amount of work to do, to set our country aright. Our forces are in disarray, while those arrayed against us appear more powerful every day. Often it seems that we are witnessing the final agonies of a dying civilization.

But these are never reasons for despair. It is the Easter season. He is risen! Death--even the death of a culture, if it comes to that--is not a loss, but a road to victory.