You would hardly know that they were from the debate the seven candidates participated in on 15 Sept. 2023.  The words ‘Christ’ or ‘Christian’ were uttered only one time that we heard, when Hunter Lundy said he was a Christian near the end of the debate.

This absence of the divine was particularly glaring during the discussion about abortion that took up the first third of the debate.  Not once did anyone mention God, faith, religion, Church, or anything related during all that time.  Instead, all the candidates and moderators spoke using cold, technocratic language that would make Mustapha Mond or Dr. Fauci proud – spoke with their anodyne air about women, doctors, legislators (no fathers were mentioned that we recall), and that most dehumanizing of terms, ‘fetus’.

That is an unacceptable way to speak about the mystery and miracle that is human life.  A better way is illustrated in this story of a premature birth that happened recently in Russia:

Our world is so strange and incomprehensible. Some are horrified at the very thought of conceiving a child. Our world is contradictory. Some can’t even manage one child. And in their unexpected happiness—for every single child brings happiness, which is sometimes misunderstood or understood with great delay—they see an untimely and unnecessary burden. Others decide to have as many children as God gives them—as it had always been customary in Russia since time immemorial. That’s why God had always blessed Russia. And such people know with their hearts that where there are children, there is Paradise; and the more children the more Heavenly joy in the family.

She knew that. She knew that she was bearing a precious child. She prayed with complete trust in the Lord. But at some point she noticed that she was bleeding.

. . .

She did not want to lose her baby, and so, turning with all her heart to the Almighty, she also turned to doctors as well. At that moment she was fifteen weeks pregnant. The doctors diagnosed placental detachment and admitted the mother to the hospital so that she could keep her baby.

She asked all her acquaintances to pray for her and prayed herself. She also consulted with a priest. For the day and the hour could come when her baby would be born prematurely. His bodily existence would be incompatible with our world, and then she would have to struggle for his immortal soul.

We will never understand why God, having allowed a child to be conceived in his mother’s womb, didn’t allow him to be born at term and took him from our sinful world so early. The cause of any pathology and premature death is the fact that our world was corrupted by sin. We are heirs of a corrupted nature, and we bear the destructive consequences of sin. But even the most fatal consequences are included in Divine Providence. How can we fathom this? The mystery of Providence will remain a mystery.

And that fateful day came. Her pregnancy resulted in what medicine calls a miscarriage.

He was born. He was only about fifteen centimeters (about six inches) long—a little human being. But so real, with fingers and toes. It was a baby boy—her desired, beloved son. His little heart was beating fast—she could see it. He was alive!

He fed from her through the umbilical cord. He found himself in the external environment too early and could not survive in our inhospitable, aggressive world. But there was someone with him who was trying to overcome external aggression, because she loved him infinitely—it was his mother. She looked at him affectionately, an infant so dear and priceless. But, realizing that there was very little time left, she immediately stretched out her hand to the holy water, which was right there on the bedside table.

She had spoken about all this with the priest in advance, and he had told her what to do and how to do it. She had been preparing for this and praying so that she wouldn’t meet this moment unprepared spiritually. Normal water would have been fine too. But she had brought some holy water with her because she had wanted everything to be holy in the sacrament. And now that moment came.

God bless!

It so happened that there was no one in the hospital ward at that moment. And the mother perceived it as God’s mercy, because a great sacrament was being performed there—the spiritual birth of a little human being into eternal life. Her own flesh and blood, her sweet little one, who was now being born of water and of the Spirit (Jn. 3:5). And at that sacred moment there should be no fuss, no screams, and no running staff.

The Lord arranged that no outsider was present where the angels were receiving the newly baptized infant. In the sacred stillness, in the secret silence of the sacrament the mother performed Baptism.

“The servant of God Alexander is baptized in the name of the Father, amen; and of the Son, Amen; and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

With these holy words she poured holy water on her son’s head three times, and the grace of God washed him inexplicably and mysteriously. Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the Light! The Life–Giving Trinity, the Indivisible Trinity, Whose name is Love, allowed a newly baptized baby to be born into eternal life. Where death wanted to triumph a spiritual victory shone.

We don’t even guess what the Lord has entrusted us with. Human beings, created in the image of God the Creator, participate in the creation of new people. Let no one think that only the carnal is accomplished in the conception of a child. No, a wondrous mystery of God is performed there. Bringing from non–being into being is a gift from God, Who created the whole world out of nothing. Created in the image of God the Savior, people participate in the salvation of new people as well. Parents are entrusted with the lives of their children: parents name them; if they are wise enough, parents will also introduce them to the mystery of salvation. God calls parents to become like the guardian-angels of their children—that is, to protect them from sin and nourish them with the life-giving dew of the Holy Spirit. Let’s think seriously about how much is entrusted to us. So much that it is terrifying.

But let’s return to that ordinary hospital ward, which was transformed for a moment into a church of God and stretched its vault to heaven. Eternity was united with a few seconds of the sacrament so that the baptized infant would receive the blessings of eternity. Now it remained for the holy angels to receive the soul of the newly baptized baby from his weak body. His heart soon stopped beating. He departed from our sinful earth. But it was not such a great tragedy here as there could have been. For a baby, which is as pure as an angel, the true life is in Heaven. An indescribable, profound peace began to reign in his mother’s heart. Spiritual joy shone instead of despondency.

She thanks the Lord and believes that it is the greatest mercy of God. For the child has departed from the earthly world, having entered through the gates of God’s Paradise, given to us by Christ out of His great love.

They gave her the baby’s body, and she buried him in the cemetery next to her relatives. And the priest performed the funeral service over the baby according to the order proper in this case.

Our world is a mysterious arena of struggle. Good and evil come to grips in a violent battle. Eternal destiny is at stake, and the fruits of this warfare extend to our children as well. But, by the mercy of God, there are spiritual winners even here.

There is an image of God in every little child, just as the sun is reflected in a small mirror. And a child himself is a priceless Divine gift.

So, fight for the lives of your children. And fight even more vigorously for their eternal life.

There is a gigantic chasm between the spirit of that conception and birth (and any Christian conception and birth) and the spirit of the discussion last Friday.  To those on stage, a child is not a miracle, a gift of God, a soul and a body worthy of baptism and salvation and eternal life with God in Heaven.  It is a burden on a woman, and its life must be snuffed out and its remains disposed of as biological waste per the all-wise god-doctor, lest it should put any kind of restriction on her personal ‘freedom’.

But why this intense focus on abortion?  Isn’t this a settled issue in largely Christian Louisiana?  Perhaps not.  There is a shift in the West away from Christianity and back towards the paganism that existed prior to it.  And abortion is a central issue that divides those two religious cultures.  Ms. Louise Perry, a self-professed agnostic, writes (our thanks to Rod Dreher for linking to this in one of his Substack essays):

What Kyle Harper has described as the “first sexual revolution” emerged in a slave society in which Roman men enjoyed unrestricted sexual access to the bodies of their social inferiors, including children, and murdered infants were understood as an acceptable consequence of the need for frequent male sexual release. The violation of slaves and other low-born people was simply, as Harper puts it, “beyond the field of vision for ancient thinkers.” All legal systems, including the Roman one, have some concept of rape as forbidden sexual violation. But rape is normally a crime that can be committed against only some categories of women—typically, only those whose male kin are inclined to object to the offense, and able to punish the perpetrator. The poor and the friendless have no such recourse, and they are thus defined as unrape-able.

The moral innovation of Christianity was to reconceptualize rape as a moral wrong done to the woman herself, regardless of her birth. Paul’s prohibition of (to use the Greek term) porneia—that is, illicit sexual activity, including prostitution—upended an ethical system in which male access to the female body was unquestioned and unquestionable. Whereas the Romans regarded male chastity as profoundly unhealthy, Christians prized it and insisted on it. Early converts were disproportionately female because the Christian valorization of weakness offered obvious benefits to the weaker sex, who could—for the first time—demand sexual continence of men. Feminism is not opposed to Christianity: It is its descendant.

. . .

The legal status of abortion is at the center of the contemporary culture war because it represents the bleeding edge of dechristianization. When pro-life and pro-choice advocates fight about the nitty-gritty of abortion policy, what they are really fighting about is whether our society ought to remain Christian. Most people who describe themselves as pro-choice have not really thought about what truly abandoning Christianity would mean—that is, truly abandoning Christians’ historically bizarre insistence that “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” But there are a few heralds of repaganization who are willing to be confidently and frighteningly consistent.

Where is Louisiana on this spectrum of staying faithful to Christ vs abandoning Christianity for the pagan past?  Did the latter play a role in the silence of the candidates vis-à-vis Christianity and abortion?  Were they trying to impress the elite of the Old Media before whom they were being interrogated?  Were they simply embarrassed to speak about Christianity?

The history of the Church is replete with condemnations of abortion – from the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament to early Christian writers and canons to contemporary saints.  The candidates for governor could have cited any of them in defending Louisiana’s pro-life laws and culture.  But they did not.  It was a horrible spectacle and a missed opportunity to protect unborn babies.

Politicians share in the responsibility of upholding a Christian culture.  We hope that those candidates who are Christians will use upcoming debates, other public appearances, and especially their time in office to help the Church to prosper rather than ignore its health or lack thereof, for as the health of the Church goes, so goes the health of Louisiana.  The words of the Lord Jesus Christ will hopefully not depart from their hearts:

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels (St. Mark’s Gospel 8:38).

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. . . . See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (St. Matthew’s Gospel 18:2-6, 10-14).