Most students talked about wanting to work for clinics in underserved communities or for humanitarian programs abroad.

However, one colleague's response stood out: "I want to work for Planned Parenthood, and someday, I want to be the president of Planned Parenthood."

I was stunned by the statement.

No one else was.

During my 16 years of Catholic schooling, I had never heard Planned Parenthood mentioned so casually—and so favourably—in a classroom setting.

And in all my years living in the Midwest, where most people I knew were Christians of some stripe, it had never occurred to me that revealing my faith to someone might create tension.

But now I found myself on the East Coast, in public health school, and I was the only Catholic that I knew of in my cohort.

I kept my Catholic identity to myself for most of the first semester.

I worried how I would be perceived if I discussed my faith openly.

In a very pro-choice environment, I represented the other side of an issue and, I feared, all the stereotypes that come with it.

To some of my classmates, being pro-life meant protesting and shaming women outside abortion clinics—the same clinics at which they volunteered as patient escorts.

Eventually, it became difficult to hide my Catholicism.

Any classmate I became friends with on Facebook knew I loved two things: babies and Pope Francis.

But I decided that if I were to get along, make friends and not be seen as anti-woman or some sort of fanatic, I needed to avoid engaging in conversations about the morality of abortion—and I was happy to do just that.

I had long ago abandoned the pro-life movement of my high school and college years.

The people I walked beside at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., trafficked in the extreme: graphic images of abortions or displays of faith that bordered on self-righteousness.

And it was these voices that seemed to have the most funding, publicity and political clout.

Groups like Feminists for life or Pro-Life Democrats were also present at the march, but their witness seemed overshadowed.

About a year into my graduate coursework, I was approached by the professor of a reproductive health advocacy course, a woman of faith I deeply admired.

Her request was surprising: Could I write up a brief summary of the Catholic view on abortion for her class to read?

She wanted students to be exposed to all sides of the issue, but most of all to understand "the other side" in the way they understood themselves.

I readily agreed and got to work.

The most natural place to begin was St. John Paul II's "The Gospel of Life."

I had not read the document in years, and upon revisiting it I realized: This encyclical is not just about being pro-life; it is also about social justice. Continue reading

• Image: YouTube

Trying to awaken the conscience of the world to reject the "culture of death" which creates "structures of sin," Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae, "How can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes?

"And what of the violence inherent not only in wars as such but in the scandalous arms trade, which spawns the many armed conflicts which stain our world with blood?

"What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world's ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life?"

John Paul continued, "We shall concentrate particular attention on another category of attacks, affecting life in its earliest and in its final stages … Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection."

Then St. John Paul tackled the death penalty. He said due to improvements in the penal system, the need to execute a dangerous criminal in order to defend society was not necessary. "Such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent," he wrote.

Many Catholics, as well as many other Christians, hold inconsistent opinions regarding the protection of life.

Some condemn abortion, but fail to oppose the mass murder of war - which mostly kills innocent people. Others work to protect the environment while promoting the murder of unborn children through abortion as a distorted means to control population.

But all life issues are morally and logically linked. It's what the Catholic Church refers to as the "consistent ethic of life."

St. John Paul explains: "Where life is involved, the service of charity must be profoundly consistent. It cannot tolerate bias and discrimination, for human life is sacred and inviolable at every stage and in every situation; it is an indivisible good. We need then to ‘show care' for all life and for the life of everyone. …

"As disciples of Jesus, we are called to become neighbors to everyone (see Lk 10:29-37), and to show special favor to those who are poorest, most alone and most in need. In helping the hungry, the thirsty, the foreigner, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned - as well as the child in the womb and the old person who is suffering or near death - we have the opportunity to serve Jesus."

Quoting St. John Chrysostom, St. John Paul wrote, " ‘Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not neglect it when you find it naked. Do not do it homage here in the church with silk fabrics only to neglect it outside where it suffers cold and nakedness.'

"What is urgently called for is a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life. … The purpose of the Gospel, in fact, is to transform humanity from within and to make it new."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist.

Instead, they accused her of being a bigot and a homophobe, called her intolerant, and changed the topic to something less intellectually taxing.

My friend's experience is practically a cliché. Americans who offer traditional viewpoints on moral issues in the public square have become accustomed to calumny. They know that reasoned arguments will rarely receive reasoned refutation.

In California, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has become the victim of a well-funded smear campaign because he expects that Catholic teachers shouldn't publicly undermine Catholic beliefs.

Last month, a philosophy professor was suspended from a Catholic university for criticizing heterodox instruction. Even non-believers suffer this fate. Fashion house Dolce and Gabbana is being boycotted because its owners believe that children deserve mothers and fathers.

In the cultural conversation about moral issues, reasoned arguments seem increasingly drowned out by personal attacks. And twenty years ago today, Pope St. John Paul II predicted this would happen.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of John Paul's Evangelium Vitae, his encyclical on the mission of the Gospel of Life. Evangelium Vitae is probably the most comprehensive and compelling encyclical on moral issues I have ever read.

It addresses the evils of abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. But the encyclical is fundamentally concerned with the relationships between love, truth, freedom, and justice. Twenty years after its promulgation, we must return to Evangelium Vitae. Its message becomes more relevant each year. Continue reading

• Bishop James Conley in Public Discourse

James Conley is the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.