ARLINGTON, Virginia, June 28, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Obamacare has made the 2012 election more important than ever, and provides a new imperative for the pro-life movement to act decisively, said Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life early Thursday afternoon.
“I’m feeling energized for the elections,” said Pavone when asked his reaction to the ruling at the 2012 National Right to Life Convention in Arlington, Virginia. “I think it’s going to get people raging mad.”
The priest and leading pro-life activist said the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act, with Justice John Roberts joining the majority, makes it “clearer than ever that it is the voting booth that’s the solution to what we in the pro-life movement have been concerned about regarding Obamacare.”
Pavone noted that a lawsuit filed by his organization, as well as several other religious employers, ” against the bill’s mandate forcing coverage of birth control is “well in process.”
“Of course we were waiting to see what today’s decision might do to that, but in light of what happened, that goes full speed ahead. And we’re confident we can still be successful,” he said.
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Meanwhile, he said, the ruling will do little to stem the unpopularity of the law. “There’s so much opposition to this law; the more it becomes known, the more unpopular it becomes. I think that it will simply energize people to say, get Obama out.”
In a spiritual sense, said the priest, it will be important to keep Scriptural wisdom in mind: “Do not fret at the triumph of the wicked: do not let yourself be deceived or disturbed, because their triumph is always fleeting, is always temporary.”
“We go at it spiritually from that point of view to say Lord, you allow darkness, you allow us to fall into depths of evil, and yet you never take away the way out, you never close off the way back to salvation,” he said. “So the sense of confidence is key. So it’s not just a matter of praying that things will be well, it’s about experiencing the presence of Christ in the midst of this.”
Pavone advised those in the pro-life movement discouraged by the news to turn their disappointment to concrete action, however small.
“Putting the psychological and the spiritual together, at a moment like this we have to take our disappointment and channel it into productive energy,” he said.
“We ask ourselves: what concretely can I do today about this? What can I do to rally people to educate them? As soon as we put our energies into some concrete action, no matter how small it is, then it starts re-encouraging us.”