Many people do not know what apologetics is. Those who do often think of it only in terms of correcting misinterpretations of Church teachings or traditions, or clearing up conflicting interpretations of Scripture passages. But in an increasingly paganized culture, apologetics involves offering charitable correction regarding misperceptions about the reasons for the Church’s teachings on moral issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia.
Discussions about these issues can become contentious, but the contention should never come from those of us who offer the truth of the gospel. Our side of the conversation must be advanced with gentleness and respect, because many will take simple failure to agree with them as hostility.
Because Christianity is perceived to be on the decline in the U.S., advocates for abortion and the LGBTQ lifestyle are becoming bolder and more aggressive with their propaganda. They are happy to send spokespersons to your business, your child’s school, your public library, even your church, to ply you with information regarding all of their services and resources.
How should a Catholic respond when spokespersons for groups promoting immorality show up to woo people through a local organization within your community? I think a recent event at the United Congregational Church in Grand Island, Nebraska, might be a good example.
The enemy of my enemy
Planned Parenthood’s official objective in holding a workshop at this Protestant church in rural Nebraska, near my neck of the woods, was to “share information about Planned Parenthood health care services and other ways they support the community.” However, its obvious objective was to promote its products and services to a receptive or unsuspecting audience.
Why did Planned Parenthood end up at this particular church? On its website, the church’s vision statement states: “[W]e, the members of this church welcome and affirm that all persons of every . . . sexual orientation or gender identity are welcome to participate in the full life and ministry of this community of faith, including membership and leadership” (emphasis added).
You see, Planned Parenthood no longer solely promotes abortion, contraception, and radical feminism. Over the past decade, it has become an aggressive advocate of LGBT culture as well. Although this may seem paradoxical, this is a common tactic of the culture of death: anything contrary to the gospel is an appealing weapon against Christianity (“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”).
Grand Island is located in central Nebraska, one of the more sparsely populated areas in the U.S. If Planned Parenthood is looking to expand there, it is likely also trying to expand into your neighborhood. For this reason, we all need to pay attention to Planned Parenthood’s marketing activities.
Planned Parenthood’s representative actually gave two talks at Grand Island’s United Congregational Church. The first talk took place during the church’s worship service and was delivered by Planned Parenthood’s advocacy strategist for western Nebraska. For purposes of this article, I’ll refer to him as “the PP rep.”
About a month before, I had invited the same PP rep to join me in an open forum at a public library. On that occasion, Planned Parenthood declined to participate, stating, “At this time any sort of program that adopts an ‘us v. them’ format will not be something we are able to pursue, including a debate with individuals not supportive of sexual and reproductive health care.”
Charitable questioning
Even though Planned Parenthood was not willing to accept my invitation, I accepted its invitation by attending the event at the church, which was advertised as open to the public. I was not attending in order to debate anyone, nor was I planning be difficult or confrontational. My goal was to charitably ask questions in order to get people to recognize Planned Parenthood’s misinformation.
When I arrived, I was not aware of the “sermon” the PP rep had delivered earlier that morning. I learned of that only after the church’s pastor posted it on the internet a few days later. In speaking to the congregation during the service, the PP rep said that Planned Parenthood was working to build partnerships with schools, was active in providing comprehensive sexual education in schools, and had begun to provide hormone therapy and other gender-affirming care.
The talk I attended took place in the church hall right after the worship service. There were about thirty people in the hall when I arrived. I did not know it until later, but about a third of those were pro-life advocates.
The PP rep recited the services Planned Parenthood provides its customers, including mammograms and lots of services for LGBTQ+ people. When he mentioned abortion, he repeated the lie that abortion is only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s business. He repeated a lot of lies.
When he offered to take questions, I asked him if Planned Parenthood considers a pregnancy test or a breast exam to be a service just as it considers abortion to be a service. He confirmed that it does. I pointed out that this seems like a dishonest comparison, since a pregnancy test or a breast exam may cost as little as $10, whereas a first-trimester medical abortion may cost more than $500. He confirmed the vast difference in pricing but stood by the three percent statistic. At that point, another attendee picked up on the misinformation and started asking pointed questions. The pastor tried to change the subject by saying that money was not the issue.
Money isn’t the only issue
I used that opportunity to point out that for many years Planned Parenthood has received more than $500 million in taxpayer money annually. “Since abortion is the heart and soul of Planned Parenthood,” I said, “these funds and the money they make off of abortions is a concern for a lot of Americans.”
The PP rep said that the Hyde Amendment stood in the way of Planned Parenthood receiving any taxpayer funds. When I pointed out that Planned Parenthood acknowledges this government funding in its annual report, he said he had not seen the report.
There was a pause, so I took the opportunity to point out that Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, admitted while testifying before Congress several years ago that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. I asked him if there were mammogram machines in any of the Planned Parenthood clinics he had visited. Again, he said somewhat sheepishly he did not know.
It was becoming evident that the PP rep was familiar only with the information (and misinformation) he had been given by his superiors. When forced to go off-script, he was unable to keep up.
At that point, another gentleman asked if Planned Parenthood was providing hormone therapy for children. The PP rep modified his prior claim that Planned Parenthood provides hormone therapy and said that it does not actually provide the hormones, it simply refers the child to a provider who does. I followed up with a related question: “Will Planned Parenthood refer children with unwanted same-sex attraction or unwanted gender dysphoria to counselors who will help them overcome the attraction or condition?”
Once again, the pastor tried to change the subject, claiming that my question was not related to a reproductive issue, so it was not relevant to the discussion. Others in the room disagreed with the pastor, urging him to let the PP rep speak. I pointed out that a simple “yes” or “no” was all the question sought.
As the PP rep tried to collect his thoughts, I pointed out that many states have considered or passed laws that ban counseling aimed to help a person resist same-sex attraction or overcome gender dysphoria, and Planned Parenthood has been a strong advocate for such laws.
The PP rep paused even longer, and the room grew silent. After a few moments, he said he did not know how to answer my “complicated question” in a short period of time. I suggested that he had all the time he needed, but the pastor rescued him by stepping in and ending the workshop.
It was obvious that Planned Parenthood believes that the right to choose is limited to abortion. It believes a person should not have the right to choose to have mental health treatment.
Why is this important for the Church, our families, and our culture? Because evil hates light. As long as the culture of death is allowed to lurk in the shadows, it will metastasize. However, when we shine a light on the lies of the culture of death, it is weakened and recedes even further into the darkness where fewer people can be influenced by it. In addition to this, it weakens the confidence of the advocates of the culture of death. Finally, it may actually convert someone.
Sowing the seeds of love
I doubt I changed anyone’s mind that day at the church. Those who were firmly in support of Planned Parenthood’s message are not going to be persuaded to change their minds simply because one leftist spokesperson appears inept. Yet the role of an apologist is not to change hearts and minds on the spot. Although that can happen, it is foreign to human nature and therefore exceedingly rare.
As I mentioned earlier, I had invited Planned Parenthood to join me in a public discussion of its objective and goals for Nebraska, but the organization declined. I went ahead with the event anyway. Seventy-five to eighty people attended the talk at our local public library. I spent an hour talking about various inconvenient facts that Planned Parenthood conceals. Then I showed a series of videos in which Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, describes the abortion procedures employed in each trimester.
A few weeks after that talk, and about a week after I attended the Planned Parenthood talk at the Grand Island United Congregational Church, I received a phone call from a woman who had attended my talk. She said that prior to attending my talk, she would have described herself as “pro-choice.” Now in her seventies, she had never thought about how an abortion actually occurs or what it actually accomplishes. She said now that she knows what abortion does and how it’s performed, she is fully pro-life.
The true role of an apologist is to offer truth with charity. Often the truth is not nearly as persuasive as the charity with which it is offered. We act as instruments of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes we plant very small seeds that may lie dormant for a long time. With patience, persistence, and the grace of God, some seeds sprout. This has happened with Bernard Nathanson, Anthony Levatino, Abby Johnson, and many more former abortion activists.
On that Sunday afternoon at the United Congregational Church hall, several of us offered truth in the form of inconvenient questions. The questions were posed without throwing them like Molotov cocktails. They were intended to promote thought among the attendees as much as they were intended to elicit answers from the PP rep. I knew any answer I received from him was going to be incomplete, vague, or misleading.
However, the seeds planted in the hearts and minds of the other people in the room may bear fruit someday. That is how grace often works. One question in 2020 is added to a question from 1998, and both are added to questions after that, until the person concludes that Planned Parenthood isn’t answering questions. The culture of death is only creating more questions and confusion. If a person comes to such a conclusion in humility, the Church is always there to offer the one and only answer to all these questions: Jesus Christ.
There are other answers as well. The child is not simply a lump of cells or a piece of tissue prior to birth. Science and reason tell us that it is a human being with a heart, fingers, and toes. Science and natural law tell us that men and women are created for each other, and that children thrive best when they are raised in a home with their loving mother and loving father. Reason and simple observation tell us that radical feminism is destructive not only to children but to women as well.
But the ultimate question in our lives is not when life begins, how life begins, or what we can do with our life. The ultimate question is: why is there life at all?
Superficial answers to crucial questions
In a way, the people who supported Planned Parenthood’s propaganda at the United Congregational Church have probably been asking themselves variations of the ultimate question. However, they have been satisfied with a superficial and incomplete answer. The answers they have been given might include:
- You exist to enjoy bodily autonomy.
- You exist to enjoy equality.
- You exist to enjoy freedom, which is the right to do anything you want, so long as it does not harm someone else.
- You exist to make your own choices.
- You exist to experience pleasure.
Superficial and incomplete answers such as these may satisfy someone who is hurting, has been abandoned, or who has never received agape, the self-sacrificing love of Christ through a parent or a spouse. Yet these answers are also wrong.
Because we are often dealing with wounded people who are working with superficial answers to life’s deepest questions, sharing our faith with charity is essential. It is at least as important when dealing with the culture of death as it is when dealing with anti-Catholics and non-Catholics who may agree with us on the moral issues but who disagree on theological or exegetical matters.
If we approach the culture of death with as much zeal and aggression as the culture of death comes at us, many from the culture of death will view us as another threat, and they will build a thick wall between objective truth and their personal (subjective) version of the truth.
We have to be willing to meet them on their turf, and we have to be willing to suffer from their slings and arrows without firing back. Our weapons are truth with charity in the face of their scoffs, false allegations, and even their ridicule.
For this reason, it is essential that we heed St. Peter’s wisdom: “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Pet. 3:15-16).
By learning what our adversaries say, and why they say it, and by learning more about what the Church teaches and why it teaches it, we gain confidence. This confidence helps us remain humble, gentle, and respectful in the face of accusations and attacks.
St. Peter’s words cited above are as important today as they were under the oppressive and murderous Roman persecution. This approach helped to spread Christianity around the world for twenty centuries. If taken by enough people, this approach will restore the culture of life.
Sidebar 1: Deceptive Jargon
Planned Parenthood invests an immense amount of time and money in its message. Its minions use to call use of contraception “safe sex.” Now they call it “safer sex” because they had to admit that it was not nearly as safe or effective as abstinence and chastity.
But that’s not the only careful phrasing they employ. Abortion is called reproductive health care, choice, or women’s health care. Sex education that promotes homosexuality and gender ideology is now called “sexual education.” This is the curriculum Planned Parenthood is trying to inject into public schools.
“Sexual health care,” “gender-affirming care,” and “transitioning” are now used for hormone treatments and sex reassignment surgery instead of the former and highly inaccurate phrase “sex change.” Instead of using the label “pro-life” to identify those of us who disagree with their ideology, they label us “anti-choice.”
Planned Parenthood and other progressive liberals often modify words and phrases because people are more likely to tolerate or ignore something if the language is vague or not clearly defined. People also
naturally resist being labeled as “anti-” anything. Planned Parenthood and other progressive liberal advocates are perfectly happy playing with words, because that takes the focus off of what is really happening. In reality, Planned Parenthood is doing all it can to destroy lives, destroy the culture, and eliminate Christianity from every corner of the globe.
Sidebar 2: Strategies for Truth Telling
Whenever I attend a talk or an event at which an anti-Catholic or anti-Christian message is going to be promoted, I spend a lot of time studying the opposing message, a lot of time in prayer and asking others for their prayers, and I always try to find a partner to attend with me. Your partner can serve as moral and prayer support, someone to debrief with after the event is over, someone to call for help if a situation becomes threatening (which has happened to me on only one occasion in the past).
On this occasion, I was unable to find a partner to attend with me, but I was told someone from the Grand Island Diocese pro-life group would be in attendance. As it turned out, there were about nine Grand Island diocesan pro-life advocates in attendance, as well as at least one young man who appeared to be a non-Catholic Christian.
Our numbers made it difficult for the others to ignore us or write us off, because when one of us finished our question, another pro-lifer would be ready with the next difficult question. The PP rep did not know who was who in the room, so if he tried to pivot from one difficult question to a new question, he often called upon another pro-life advocate.