Response to rhetoric
Sarah Haight
senior
This letter is in response to two letters from yesterday's edition of The Observer.
Recently, I was having a discussion with a friend of mine who enjoys inventing adjectives. His most recent creation was extremely dirty, and I jokingly told him that I would probably want to slap anyone who could be described by that word. It's a strong reaction, but that's the power of language.
I put the incident out of my mind, until I read Nathaniel Hannan's response to the letter regarding the statue donated by the Knights of Columbus. I was reminded of the earlier incident because, as I read the letter, I became increasingly shocked by its vehement and self-righteous tone, and this reminded me once again of the power language has over all of us.
In what I consider to be a theologically questionable and rhetorically blatant statement, Hannan asserts, "If abortion is a justifiable choice, then [women who had abortions] should not be concerned with our reminding them that God thinks otherwise. If, however, their alarm at our memorial comes from the deep sense that they have done something horrible, then our memorial has served its purpose."
First, on the theological note, I am always interested to know what sort of personal divine experience a person who asserts, "God thinks ..." has had. A more accurate statement would be, for instance, "Based on Scripture passage x, Church teaching y, and logical reason z, the Catholic Church teaches ..." I don't think this revision is too much to ask.
But this theological misstep was not as serious or as grievous to me as the rhetorical dimension of Hannan's letter. Its purpose was not to persuade people to accept the Knights' reasons for donating the statue or even to explain it in any kind of coherent fashion. Its purpose was to offend those who do not agree with him.
Such passages as the one cited above and the one about, "the excommunication that they inflicted upon themselves by having an abortion" belies an intention to alienate, not to accept back into the Church, those who have made the decision to have an abortion. After such statements, the statement, "We welcome them with open arms" rings quite hollow. I would like to think that Hannan just feels strongly about the issue and that somehow he was typing faster than he was thinking but a harsh and unforgiving intention seems to lie behind his words.
He (and all of us) need to conscious of the powerful tool (or weapon) we wield in the form of language. It has the power to alienate as well as to embrace and consequently there are responsible and irresponsible uses of it. Whether he wanted to or not, Hannan's letter reflected on both the Knights and the Catholic Church (who to be sure never authorized such an utterance) and made them look unforgiving and hostile, which the Church patently is not.
So where am I going with this? Yesterday's Gospel reading was the one about complaining about the speck in your neighbor's eye but not noticing the log in your own. Abortion is certainly a serious issue, but the Church's and society's attitudes toward it and utterances regarding it are no less so. If Hannan and the Knights are truly concerned about reconciling women who have had abortions back to the Church (a supposition I regard as dubious at best, but with which I am willing to indulge them), they need to be conscious of the attitude they project and the language they use when speaking about abortion.
Are they giving lip service to forgiveness and reconciliation, while sending a rhetorical message of condemnation? In Hannan's letter, yes. But I hope to see him and those like him embrace an attitude more like that of Bill Fusz, whose thoughtful letter on the same subject I found very encouraging. For a dialogue of forgiveness and reconciliation to occur, all involved need to remove the tone of blame and moral condemnation from out language, and to realize that we could be similarly condemned for any one of our faults.
Sarah Haight
senior
Badin Hall
February 26, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 27, 2001
