TFP Newsletter,
Pleasantville (NY), Vol. III, No. 18, 1983, pages 1-3 (www.tfp.org)
Faced
With the Slaughter of the Innocents
An
Appeal of the Spanish TFP
Following efforts by the recently elected Socialist
government of Spain to "legalize" the barbarous practice of abortion,
the Spanish Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property —
Covadonga (TFP), has undertaken a vigorous campaign calling upon Spaniards to
oppose the measure with prayer, penance and energetic action.
In the April 6 edition of the most important
newspaper in Madrid, ABC, the Spanish TFP published a six-page appeal entitled Faced
with the Slaughter of the Innocents — Within the Limits of the Law and Order:
Holy Indignation.
Members of the Spanish TFP holding public campaigns on
the busy streets of
I. Sadness
Over a Confirmed Forecast
Man usually rejoices over the fulfillment of a
prediction he makes, not out of a foolish sentiment of self-love, but because a
prediction is an exercise of the mind, and so it is normal for him to
experience the wholesome joy of its accuracy.
However, this is not the state of mind of the members
and volunteers of the Spanish Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and
Property — Covadonga (TFP), as events confirm the perplexities they had voiced
in an Open letter to the Spanish
Socialist Workers Party (PSOE). There Covadonga-TFP manifested its apprehension
at a possible victory of the socialists in the elections (ABC,
The Open letter
emphasized that the Resolutions of the PSOE's
Congresses favor the establishment of free love, the censurable
"rehabilitation" of homosexuality, and the "legitimizing"
of abortion and contraceptives.
Since an approval of those measures would unleash a
total offensive against the centuries old Christian principles with which the
law protects public morality and the family, the TFP pointed out this astonishing
fact: While many Catholics were inclined to vote for the PSOE, the Bishops'
Conference, which has the divine mission of preserving the nation from that
abyss of horrors, implied in a memo of its Standing Commission that it was
morally licit for the faithful to vote for the PSOE.
The socialist victory does not portend a lesser danger
for Catholic Spain than did the Mohammedan hordes which crossed the
However, there are states of mind that not even the
obvious can straighten out. The Socialist Party won with a considerable share
of the Catholic vote.
Thus, the TFP's prediction was confirmed to such an
extent that we can now say that we have come to the edge of the abyss.
II.
Looking to the Future
If a reaction with all the required force of impact
fails to take place, all that the Socialist Party will have to do is to advance
like the Moors of old.
There can be no doubt about it. The attitude of the
Cortes, the Government, and even the King himself will depend not only on the
scope of this wholesome reaction, but also on its ardor.
Victory depends on this. Anything else would mean
accepting Archbishop Opas' policy and rejecting the
Christian, heroic spirit of El Cid Campeador, which
is so identified with
III.
Prayer and Penance
The bishops, our shepherds and masters, know the value
of Christian preaching better than anyone else. They also know that the fruit of
the heroism of our eight centuries of the Reconquest
would have not been a complete victory of the Faith had it not been for
preaching and its noble sister penance.
They also know that without either one, the
indomitable resistance of the Spanish nation against the troops of the despot
before whom all of
We ask Your Excellencies, the Bishops: Fill the roads
of
IV.
Slaughtering the Innocents and Protecting the Leftists
In our century, that boasts an inflexible and absolute
egalitarianism, no act of injustice or justice against leftists fails to provoke
a chain reaction of indignant protests from laicist
"humanitarians" the world over, even when those leftists are radical
in thought and terrorist in deeds.
But how... shocking it is that all this humanitarianism
seems to hush when it comes to protecting innocent victims surprised by murder
in their mother's very womb!
Are we, who as Catholics have the gravest reasons to
execrate voluntary abortion going to fall into such an aberration?
Some will object that all these considerations are
pertinent only if one assumes that abortion constitutes a crime against human life, a grave transgression of the Fifth Commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill." But, they may add,
such a severe qualification regarding the interruption of the life of a still
incompletely formed human being seems exaggerated.
An analysis of this argumentation would have some meaning
if this Appeal were addressed not only to the venerable national Episcopate and
the Catholic public, but also to those sectors ruled by indifference,
secularism or atheism, which are truly in the minority. But this is not the
case. It is enough for us to remind the Catholic reader that the Pontifical
documents on abortion have always censured it severely.
According to the authoritative teaching of Pius XI,
those responsible for abortions perform "deadly operations"
(Encyclical Casti Connubii of
December 31, 1930).
V. A State
of
As previously mentioned, the socialist victory, a
catastrophe under whose weight we are groaning, has
been due to the ample contribution of the Catholic vote.
What was the decisive factor that caused those
Catholics to vote for Socialism?
A praiseworthy desire to preserve mankind from a new
world war has led countless contemporary statesmen to promote, since
This policy is based on a concept of men and human
affairs devoid of the idea of evil. According to the adherents of this policy,
it would seem that men (at least those on the left) are conceived without
original sin. Therefore, if the leftists are ready to attack, it is primarily
because their adversaries in the center and the right did not deal with them
properly — each and every demand of the left must be met with
"understanding," friendship and confidence, and concessions must be
made.
Everyone should carelessly and candidly get along with
them in everything, whether it be ballet or industrial
production. Above all, no one should ever argue with them. The era of polemics
is over; that of dialogue has dawned.
This mentality explains how in forty years the world
was brought to a state of terror of the communist danger through a process
successively called the policy of the "extended hand," the "fall
of ideological barriers," Ostpolitik,
and, finally, détente. This terror is
such that world figures who are serious in other
respects go so far as to advocate the unilateral disarmament of the West, that
is, its shameful capitulation before the Red Moloch!
This state of mind also infected religious circles,
leading them to gradually soften the Catholic Church's position against Communism.
From this sprang the very peculiar policy of the Second Vatican Council, which
abstained from every explicit condemnation of Communism, the Church's greatest
adversary in our days. For a reason that has been little explained to this day,
the secretariat of the Conciliar Commission
responsible for the preparation of the draft on the Church in the modern world,
failed to submit to the assembly a message by 450 Council Fathers from 86
countries, asking for the condemnation of Communism; and the "Russian
Orthodox Church" — a mere ecclesiastical administration at the service of
the lords of the Kremlin — was invited to send observers to the Council. It is
a rumored that these observers "vetoed" the approval of documents
condemning Communism.
The conclusion of all this is obvious: If one side has
the will to assert itself, expand and conquer, while the other side only
deceives itself, relaxes and yields, the former will necessarily eliminate the
latter.
VI. The
Phlegmatic Silence of Antiabortion Demonstrations
In the face of the buffet (no other word is fitting)
that the Socialist Party gave the Catholic sectors that voted for it — or that
said it was licit to vote for it — certain anti-abortionists have failed to use
absolutely every licit means to prevent the slaughter of innocents that is on
the verge of beginning in Spain.
True, they are concerned about preventing abortion,
but the attention and the zeal of their mentors is mixed with another, unexpected
concern: do not slight the socialists. In other words, let us defend the innocent
victims from the slaughter, but let us also avoid causing ideological or emotional
traumas in those who work for it.
Such a stand would be considered clearly unacceptable
if the matter concerned assassins of newborn children. Why, then, think it
acceptable regarding the unborn?
There is a great distance between an anti-abortionist
stand lacking punch, fire and life — in a word, the true Christian spirit of
Spain — and an exaggerated one. Common sense requires that the campaigns needed
in the present circumstances strike a balance between these two extremes.
In this Spain where there is freedom for everything
and for all, to the point that the drive for abortion, which is inherent in
socialist doctrine, was able to attain the degree of influence that it now
enjoys, one cannot understand why those against abortion should gag themselves
and thereby substantially lessen their possibilities of success.
In other words, the antiabortion demonstrations, made
up of throngs of Spaniards that would characteristically like to proclaim and
sing their convictions and to chivalrously explain their noble disagreement,
are instead instructed to parade in chilled and subdued silence.
In short, indignation against a proposal like the
abortionist one, within the bounds of law and order, is not just a licit
attitude for Catholics, but the result of a real moral imperative, the noble
and beautiful fruit of zeal; the same indignation that would be caused by a
mass extermination of the newborn.
VII. An
Allegory
Let us imagine ourselves in the time of Herod. The
horrendous slaughter of the innocents has begun in order to kill the Infant
God. Popular indignation immediately begins to boil, but an influential
personage steps in, fearing that such a reaction could not only undermine
authority, but also excite tempers and rend the country and leave it with the
scar of discord for a long time. He therefore uses his influence to dampen the
popular reaction. He succeeds to a great extent, and the killing continues. It
is understandable that Herod, who had already begun to hesitate, now feels less
restrained and continues his atrocious persecution. It is not difficult to
imagine that Herod would give the influential appeaser his credit and sympathy,
invite him to feasts and praise him before his compatriots. But it is impossible
not to wonder what the candid voices of the innocents
victims would have said to God about such an "appeaser."
VIII.
Appeal of the TFP
The TFP, a civic institution of Catholic inspiration
whose objective is to defend Christian civilization in the temporal sphere,
addresses its Appeal to:
— the illustrious
ecclesiastical hierarchy, with the filial veneration due to it;
— the leaders of the
antiabortion campaign, with the regard, sympathy and will to give them the cooperation
they deserve;
— all Spaniards, so that the
tragic experience of the proabortion offensive
launched by the Socialist Party may open their eyes to the true nature and
goals of socialism.
The TFP, earnestly committed to a petition drive
against abortion, summons all its members, volunteers and supporters to support
all legitimate manifestations of disagreement with the proposed abortion law.
[To
read the original full text in Spanish
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