Introducing the Consistent Life Ethic in Your Catholic Community

Posted on May 26, 2026 By Rachel MacNair

by Lois Kerschen

Recently, a Consistent Life Ethic (CLE) advocate wrote to ask how one successfully introduces our principles to one’s Catholic church community, especially if, as in this person’s case, it’s a congregation with a heavily pro-choice attitude. The following are some suggestions about what one can do. These suggestions are specific to Catholic parishes, but some could be modified and applied to other places of worship.

First is an evaluation of what the parish might already know or be doing. If the parish has a pro-life committee, ask its members if they’re familiar with the CLE and its principles as laid out in the 1980s by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. If they’re acquainted with CLE, ask what the committee does to promote it. If there isn’t a pro-life committee (although most parishes I know have one), you can consider starting one.

Starting such a committee requires the approval of your pastor, as well as your work and commitment. The advantage is that you can make sure the committee advocates for the CLE right from the beginning. Using the CLE approach might also make such a committee more attractive to potential participants, especially if you’re in a left-leaning parish.

Knowing that a too-high percentage of Catholics consider themselves pro-choice, you need to make it clear that being pro-life should mean being whole-life: that is, working against the death penalty, war, euthanasia, and other threats to life which they likely already oppose. Thus, they will see that being pro-life doesn’t mean just anti-abortion. It’s hoped that, in time, those who are pro-life on these other issues will see the connection to abortion. Additionally, when a peace and justice committee becomes more familiar with the CLE, they may find that whatever issues they focus on will get a better hearing among those who know they apply the principles across the board and include abortion opposition.

In a conservative parish, some might waffle on capital punishment or war, but again, hopefully after learning about the consistent life ethic and working on the related issues at their parish, they’ll be led to an understanding of why the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty and modern warfare. Similarly to the situation above, when Catholics who are pro-life on abortion and/or euthanasia apply pro-life principles to war and the death penalty as well (as several recent popes have done), they may find that, far from watering down their advocacy for the unborn and elderly, the CLE will get them a better hearing by being pro-life across the board.

Particularly in a left-leaning parish, it’s important to introduce people to the non-stereotypical pro-life organizations such as Feminists for Life, Democrats for Life, New Wave Feminists, Rehumanize International, Secular Pro-Life, and of course the Consistent Life Network. That way they’ll learn that being pro-life isn’t an inherently religious thing, not something that a stodgy Catholic Church pushes on them, and not an impediment to women’s rights, but something that fits their way of thinking.

Another suggestion is to contact the pro-life or peace-and-justice committees of other parishes to find out what they do. You could contact some of the parishes listed on the CLN website that have endorsed the ethic, or your diocesan pro-life office, which might be aware of CLE efforts elsewhere in the diocese.

Of course, one can always ask permission of the pastor and/or pro-life committee and/or peace and justice committee for you to make a presentation about the CLE. Have literature available. If you aren’t keen to give a presentation yourself, ask the diocesan pro-life office if there is anyone they can send.

As to the pastor, you could encourage him to include the CLE in his homilies since Catholicism promotes the CLE. Offer to bring him any materials he might need to learn more and offer to back up his homily by passing out CLN literature at Masses or at some church event.

Alternatively, ask the pastor just for permission to pass out literature at the Masses or services and have your promotion listed among the announcements at your church.

If the parish has a school, you have a prime opportunity to teach the Consistent Life Ethic. Suggest to the principal that they use the CL Kids! resources to teach the ethic. Another possibility is to make a presentation about the CLE to the upper-grade students.

The person who made the inquiry to CLN goes to a parish that’s very reluctant to talk about abortion. They’re largely pro-choice and see abortion as a political hot potato that none of them wants to touch. This situation makes for a hard nut to crack when no one is responsive to overtures about the CLE. Sometimes, you have to just keep trying.

If the pastor is the problem, perhaps you could ask another priest who is a CLE advocate to gently broach the subject for you. Tragically, far too often, parish priests try to avoid talking about specific life issues because they think they’re too controversial, and they don’t want to offend anybody. This is, of course, a priest who’s failing in his duties to teach the Church’s principles.

One parish pastor told me that when he gives a homily that mentions the prohibition of abortion, his collection goes down. I reminded him that he works for God, not for money. Nonetheless, parish priests feel a great deal of pressure to not stir up trouble. So, let them know that the CLE, with its emphasis on all the life issues, not just abortion, makes the subjects more palatable, especially when he can quote all the most recent popes on the importance of the consistent life ethic in Catholic teaching.

Pope Leo, for example, said in an address in Chiclayo, Peru, in 2023, when he was Cardinal Robert Prevost, that Cardinal Bernardin’s framework was coherent and “anchored in respect for human dignity.” Admittedly, he described discovering ways to “teach and promote precisely this kind of thinking” as one of the “greatest challenges” facing Catholics, but he has continued as Pope to promote the Consistent Life Ethic. Like Cardinal Bernardin, he includes modern warfare and the rights of migrants, as well as abortion, among pro-life issues.

Again, tying together warfare, immigration, and abortion as well as capital punishment, racism, poverty, and euthanasia will get people to pause, think, and start making connections.

In our divisive society, it’s hard to talk about life issues, even among Church members who ought to be receptive, and even to a pro-life committee or a peace and justice committee that might have a negative impression of the consistent life ethic because of bad information. All the more reason, though, to make the effort so that you can make a difference and spread adherence to the consistent life ethic.

=====================

For more of our posts on similar topics, see:

Fratelli Tutti – Consistent-Life Excerpts