Faith: Found and Kept (part 2)

(This post is second in my "Faith: Found and Kept" series.  "Faith: Found and Kept" can be found here.)

During college, I, like most young adults, was in the midst of discerning my beliefs and values.  It's a time, for many, of trial by fire.  Or at least trial by error.  I knew I was pro-life.  I knew I was for helping the hungry and homeless.  I knew I supported my friends going on mission trips to dig wells in Nicaragua (though I never went -- I wish I had).  I knew I was opposed to political regimes imprisoning people under false pretenses, especially innocent people. And I knew I was for people getting the health care they needed to live their lives to the fullest, despite their socioeconomic status.  So I was happy to be part of a community that so actively supported events that raised money and awareness to remedy these problems.  Well, most of them.

Image: maya picture / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I became pregnant with my first child, "pro-life" became more than a label.  It became very real to me.  How any woman who has carried a child in her womb can deny that a fetus is a baby is a human being -- well, it's beyond me.  Something clicked for me.  Part of it was no doubt the effect of the tickle of tiny feet from within my skin.  But part of it, I think, was that I didn't feel ready.  Yes, I was married and wanted to be a mom, but the truth was, motherhood came sooner than we had planned.  We were caught off-guard.  We were not on financially stable ground yet.  We were not prepared.  And this lead me to empathize with those women in tough spots, who "choose" abortion because they are afraid and unprepared.  I was blessed with a loving husband and a strong support system.  I knew I was among the fortunate.  And so, while I gained a greater realization for the depth of the desperation a woman might feel, I also gained a more solid grasp on what a precious and magnificent gift a child is, and how amazing it is to be part of a miracle.  I knew wanted to help save these lives, both those of the children in the womb, and those of the mothers who were considering making the worst choice of their lives.

As the pro-life cause grew into a passion within me, I came to search for ways to get involved through my church.  But the most I could find was an annual tithe to a local Crisis Pregnancy Center.  There were no groups from our church who went to any of the pro-life marches (though groups went to protest the School of the Americas).  There were no drives to supply the local CPC (though there were regular collections of toiletries for AIDS patients and their families).  There were no Natural Family Planning teachers or support contacts (though there were always letters to write on the behalf of political prisoners).  And there were no speakers who would come speak out about the Sanctity of Life, though about once a year someone would come speak about health care for the poor.

I took this as a call to be the seed and to invite others to join ME in praying at the abortion sites and writing our legislators, in collecting funds for CPCs and goods for moms in tight spots.

No one took me up on my invitation to join me at the 40 Days for Life vigil.  But that year in 2008, there was a full house at the church hosted information session about health care reform.  I was there.  But at that point, it was in hope that my growing suspicions had been wrong.  I was hoping with a lonely ache that the church I had grown to love was not pro-choice.

To be continued...

Faith: Found and Kept (part 1)

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Two Sundays ago, I attended Mass at a church that I used to call home.  My husband and I had split up for the day because one of our boys was sick, so he took one healthy kid to Mass in the morning at one church, and I took the other healthy kid to another church in the evening.

During and after church, my son and I were approached by several members of the community saying how good it was to see us and asking if and when our family would be returning.

One woman, a lay leader, said, "... if you can find it in your heart to forgive us."  And I was taken aback.  I had never considered that I had anything to forgive really.  Just sadness for having grown apart.

But let me back up.

If you know me, I hope you recognize that I am a giving person and a forgiving person.  I also expect you've probably noticed that I'm a pretty conservative Catholic.  I am generally fiscally-conservatively minded, but I also embrace Catholic social teaching which calls us to stand in solidarity with the less fortunate among us and to be a voice to the voiceless.  But I guess I didn't always identify myself as that conservative Catholic.  I mean, don't we all go through events that lead us to do some soul searching?  Or that essentially knock us upside the head with a "holy two-by-four"?  Sometimes these events are subtle, slow shifts that nudge us from one school of thought to another.  Sometimes they are more jarring and more defined.

A decade ago I was a happy member of a small Catholic community that served the local college students.  I was one at the time.  I loved the warm and inviting community, the inclusiveness, the quiet setting of the church.  And I loved the priest who acted as our Campus Minister.  I noticed at the time that he did some things differently:  He used stoneware chalices and actual bread, not wafers for communion. And he invited us to speak the Doxology with him.  I loved these things and how they made Christ more tangible to me.  I needed these things at that point in my spiritual development. And it was good for me that I didn't realize these things were at odds with Church teaching.

To be continued...

a previously censored portion of my "I like bacon" post

I considered opening this with a disclaimer, but then I remembered: this is my blog, and I'm not forcing anyone to read it, let alone agree with it. So here goes.

I am Catholic, an actual Catholic who believes & agrees with the Pope. (Ok, at least most of the time. There are, admittedly, some doctrines I struggle with.) With that in mind, Pope Benedict summed up so much of my Catholic-worldview beliefs in his message delivered on the World Day of Peace this year (January 1, 2008):

Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man. Rather, it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests...

With that context, we should respect and be good stewards of our environment, but not at the expense of human life; we should respect and have compassion for all God's creatures, but, again, not at the expense of human beings.

One question this raises for me is whether we should eat meat, since we can survive without it. I'm still not going to expound on that issue yet.

The bigger issue for me, though, is the hypocrisy that I have encountered regarding the value of animal life versus that of human life. I know there will be some out there who'll take offense to my separation of the two, but human beings are not just "other animals," and animals are not human and should not be afforded the same rights as human beings. They deserve humane treatment, yes, absolutely, but not human rights.

However, human life deserves human rights.

Anyone who knows me knows I am adamantly pro-life, something that is reflective of my Catholic beliefs, but that is based in much more than religion for me. That's not to say I can't put myself in the place of the single woman facing an unplanned pregnancy, the impregnated rape victim, or the woman with health issues that could prevent her from carrying a baby full-term safely. However, as empathetic and codependent as I am, I know in my core that human life begins at conception.

A little over a month ago on December 31st, I had the opportunity to visit the Body Worlds exhibit while it was in Charlotte. The exhibit was one of the most amazing, grotesquely beautiful things I have ever seen. It was uncomfortable to view, yet incredibly magnetic. (This blog covers the exhibit well.) One part of the exhibit focused on fetal development. The curtained off area included human embryos from 4 through 8 weeks, fetuses from 16 weeks (I think) through 34 weeks, and a woman who was eight months pregnant, with her in utero baby exposed. As awesome (and hard to take) as the pregnant woman and babies were, the embryos probably amazed me most: I'd read it before and seen photographs, but to see the spine on a 4 week old* embryonic baby and to see the fingers on an 8 week old baby the size of a nickel, there is no doubt that these are children.

So, back to the beginning: where I see hypocrisy is in those people who are adamant animal rights advocates...and card-carrying pro-Roe supporters. I have a hard time understanding how someone can argue that hogs should have the right to move in their pens without being passionate that a child has a right to live.

My issue is really that simple.

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* A baby's gestational age is calculated from the mother's last menses, typically about 2 weeks before her ovulation. Hence, a baby is 2 weeks old gestationally before s/he is even conceived! For me, that fits so perfectly with Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."