Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Can Mother Teresa help Clinton embrace adoption over abortion?

First appeared in Crux on August 19, 2016

At first blush, the idea of Hillary Clinton having much appeal for pro-life voters may seem a terribly long shot. A relatively little-known partnership between Clinton and Mother Teresa in the 1990s, however, suggests the fascinating possibility of altering the traditional political calculus.

In her July 26 speech accepting the Democratic nomination, Clinton reiterated her commitment to preserving social security, expanding social programs, fighting for children and their health insurance, and defending the disabled, working people, immigrants, women and the poor.

In many ways, those are precisely the same commitments Pope Francis will celebrate in Mother Teresa when he formally declares her a saint on Sept. 4, and Mother Teresa and Clinton are linked by more than being accomplished women in what have long been men’s worlds.

In February 1994, Mother Teresa was invited to deliver a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual ecumenical and inter-faith event that happens every February in Washington D.C. The title of the speech was Whatever You did Unto One of the Least, You Did Unto Me, which was the core of Mother Teresa’s theology of mission to the poorest of the poor.

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