I just got done doing an interview with a fine Catholic journalist about the perils and limitations of using political language ("conservative" and "liberal" and such) in talking about our Catholic faith.

In Godspy, Daniel Mansueto interviews Paola Binetti, a pro-life Opus Dei member who was elected to parliament as part of a Center-Left party.

In the United States the left aggressively promotes so-called abortion rights and the deconstruction of sexual morality and in doing so has increasingly alienated itself from its Catholic working class base. Do you feel that the left-center coalition of which you are a part runs a similar risk?

It runs a similar risk. But it is within this very center-left that the Margherita is trying to contain this drift and promote an inversion of this tendency. All the initiatives taken in the first part of this legislative session are testimony to this — initiatives to which the press has given give ample attention.

In the U.S., those who favor abortion have a great deal of power in the Democratic Party and have exercised that power by excluding most pro-life politicians from the party. Do you face similar pressures? Does fighting for the unborn from the left side of the political spectrum put your political career at risk?

I am not seeking a political career. I am here to defend politically certain values. And that is what I will do, with difficulty, but also with a greater consensus then I thought at the start. I’ve had my career in other professional fields: now I am trying only to contribute to the definition of some legal projects consistent with an analysis of the real needs of the population and with an anthropological viewpoint that I am convinced can be to everyone’s advantage, precisely because it is profoundly tied to a personalistic vision.