For the second time in 50 years, the United States Supreme Court has made the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. Incredibly, a court that leans toward a strict interpretation of the founding documents of this country fails to understand the most obvious implications of those documents when applied to this country’s laws. Of course, the first and second amendments to the Constitution are written in the broadest possible strokes, making the role of the Supreme Court in deciding these cases critical. Perhaps that is why that most of the rulings on these two amendments are the most contentious. However, that does not excuse the court for failing to exercise its proper role in defining the extent and the limits of these amendments. In order to understand those limits, one must look at the entire founding documents and not just at how the Constitution is constructed. By that I mean our precious Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
Both in the original Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court and last week’s decision, the justices merely looked at the First amendment and the Constitution, although Justice Alito seems to have gone out of his way to include arcane references from the Middle Ages and other rulings. What neither court did was to examine the first of the inalienable rights delineated in the Declaration: the right to life. The first decision was wrong because it invented a right to privacy (not a bad precedent) as more important than the right to life. The second ruling is wrong because it states that the elected representatives of the people in any state can make their decisions on abortion creating the possibility of endless changes as the elected body changes in composition. We have the experience of a right being taken away after fifty years, but this new ruling could mean that these laws are revisited every four years or less! Again, the phrase “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is ignored in favor of the will of the majority at any given moment in any given state.
The second phrase completely ignored by the Supreme Court comes from the Preamble to the Constitution: “We, the People, in order to form a more perfect union…” What the Court has done with this decision, and even more so with their many decisions which ban any limits on the Second Amendment (bearing arms) is a failure to form a union of the people. By throwing back to the states the right to make hodge podge regulations concerning protecting life and by promoting the individual’s right to bear arms over the collective welfare of the society, the Court fails to recognize that this country is a union of peoples, and not just comprised of individuals who live near each other. That opinion may have been acceptable in frontier times, but we cannot form a more perfect union if we fail to acknowledge our responsibilities toward one another. Laws which protect the unborn and laws that limit gun use “promote the general welfare” and “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity”. This failure is catastrophic as we in Albany Park and Chicago know all too well from the violence we face every day.
Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that we should first offer peace to the people we meet as we evangelize. Those who know peace will welcome us; those who do not, will turn away from us. Peace is a gift that the Supreme Court cannot give. We alone, as people who know the Lord can offer that peace which both protects life and promotes a better world. Peace, Fr Nick