Death and Life in Argentina’s Purple Land

“I will call my book The Purple Land. For what more suitable name can one find for a country so stained with the blood of her children?” — William Henry Hudson

In the wee hours of August 9, 2018, the senators of Argentina rejected the legalization of abortion: 38 against, 31 in favor. Two senators declined to vote. From the beginning, the law contained several blatant legal contradictions. For example, the text received by the Senate affirmed that abortion “is a right” – in fact, an absolute and exclusive right of women – although the Constitution clearly recognizes that the life of all human beings is protected from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

The movement to legalize abortion in Argentina has been financed for the most part by foreign organizations based in the U.S. and Britain, with the additional support of public funds provided by local authorities at various levels. There is also considerable support coming from a local media owned overwhelmingly by foreign news corporations. It is easy to see that this was just another brick in the anti-life wall that globalists are currently building everywhere in the world.

Since the demise of Spanish colonial rule, groups of Argentines have taken from time to time to hating each other with ferocity. Disagreements survive for decades, dividing brother against brother in bitter wars that would scandalize the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The recent campaign to legalize abortion was no exception. Catholics and other Christian groups were in the majority opposing the new law. On the other side were some small but noisy groups, and, of course, the mainstream media. Both were financed by mighty globalist corporations in Europe and America.

The anti-abortion supporters organized various marches and events, among them a massive peaceful, countrywide demonstration organized by Catholic action groups. People from all walks of life marched against the proposed new law in the capital, Buenos Aires, and also in another march organized by non-Catholic Christians with the support and attendance of Catholic pro-life sympathizers. Those demonstrations were as orderly and clean as they were peaceful and massive.

The pro-abortion side resorted to vandalism, physical and verbal aggression, blasphemy, nudity, and attacks on Catholic places of worship, mainly in Buenos Aires. They were supported by the main radio and television news shows where the opposition arguments were described by the “cognoscenti” as medieval superstitions not worthy of a 21st-century society.

During the weeks preceding the final vote in the Senate, the Catholic Church dutifully gathered signatures, expressed concern, and proposed reasonable solutions (though the silence from Rome was deafening). A Catholic priest of my acquaintance lamented that a majority of his fellow priests and bishops were more interested in not making any waves than in defending truth and life – which did not surprise me at all.

Argentine pro-lifers celebrate

Although the so-called pro-choice camp blamed “the powerful Catholic hierarchy” for their resounding defeat, the real opposition in the Catholic camp came from the laity who quickly organized to defend life on a number of fronts, and were ready to eventually challenge the constitutionality of the law if it were passed. The bishops showed their public support once the movement reached a certain critical mass, a few weeks before the Senate vote.

The debate in the Senate took place as federal prosecutors and judges arrested more than a dozen top businessmen connected to a vast network of kickbacks and embezzlement that, according to some early calculations, has ransacked the national treasury to the tune of  $100 billion during the last decade. The scandal has international ramifications that will be revealed in the weeks and months to come.

One of the by-products of that gigantic swindle has been the exponential growth, now approaching 50 percent, of the Argentine population living below the poverty line. The growth of poverty and a push for the legalization of abortion is a very peculiar mix. Why? Because the same politicians who caused those miserable conditions by robbing the poor, now argue that a pregnant woman should have the “right” to abort if she is so poor that she cannot raise the child.

To call that argument cynical is certainly an understatement, but I do not have any other terms that I can use in this family venue.

For Argentina, this is the end of a century of decline. What can be more decadent than gathering the lawmakers of the nation to give certain citizens a license to kill the weak and defenseless? How would the world react to a law decriminalizing slavery, the killing of Jews, or the raping of women? Is there any substantial difference between each of those and abortion?

The once proud and affluent Argentine Republic has hit bottom. The closed club of cronies that pass for business leaders has managed to ruin what little economy was left, aided by immoral politicians, a corrupt justice system, and a populace that remains hypnotized by the siren song of Peronism and the worn out slogans of the now aging 1970s political Left.

In the midst of that utter disaster, I am glad to see that ordinary Catholics had the guts to flood the country, to show their rotten political, business, and ecclesiastical leaders that they are not going to allow the globalists to exterminate our population.

The social “order” we have been enduring for so long, is coming to an end. After all, it is in the nature of a culture of death, eventually, to die. The powerful did not expect this to happen. This is also a call to Catholics everywhere to heed the words of our Pontiff: hagan lío (“raise a ruckus”) because we have a Church to clean, and a world filled with souls worth saving.

Carlos Caso-Rosendi is an Argentine-American writer. A convert, he was received in the Catholic Church in 2001. He is the founder of the Spanish website Primera Luz and his own blog in English, Carlos Caso-Rosendi. His books include Guadalupe: A River of Light, Ark of Grace – Our Blessed Mother in Holy Scripture, and A Vademecum of Catholic Apologetics. He lives in Buenos Aires.

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