The humorous Hokie Pundit (example: rejected title for paper:
Abortion: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Womb) has an
interesting inquiry: Can We Live Both the American Dream and Obey God's Will?
I asked a similar question (concerning military service) of an Catholic columnist (not our Amy Welborn btw), who replied, interestingly:
If it is quite unthinkable that Jesus would be a soldier, and if Christians are supposed to imitate Christ, doesn't it follow that Christians should not serve in the military?
There are, it seems to me, only two ways of getting around this difficulty. One way is to say that the non-military life of Jesus was purely accidental; that in other circumstances he would have taken up arms.
The other way (and this is the way the Catholic Church has traditionally dealt with the difficulty) is to say that there are two levels at which the "imitation" can be pursued. The higher level is that followed by priests and religious; the lower level is that followed by ordinary laypersons. The "hihger imitation" attempts to stay very close to the life of Jesus, including the rejection of arms; the "lower imitation" doesn't come nearly that close, and permits -- in addition to marriage and wealth -- military service.
I don't know if this second way of answering the difficulty is philosophically satisfactory, but it certainly has been the traditional Catholic way. Vatican II called into question the distinction between the higher and lower imitation of Christ...
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