Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

For those who are interested in me as me (as in, my life outside of the blog), here are some Thanksgiving pics for y’all to enjoy. I had a great holiday, and I hope the rest of you did, too!

From left: Jack(6), Ryan(7), Courtney (8), me, and my sister Melanie (16) hang out in my cousin Molly’s room. I’ve never been to my aunt’s new house so I was getting a very enthusiastic tour from Ryan and Courtney (Jack, Courtney and Molly live there). Suffice to say, between the library (oh heaven) and the movie room (!!), I was pretty content to stay there forever. **ages are my best guess!

From top: Ryan, me, and Paige (4) in the library. I love little kids’ questions about my surgery and etc. the best–they are so honest and direct. Paige had a lot of them!

My siblings and I in the kitchen before the meal.

– Jack, Kelly (15/16, Ryan’s sister), Molly (11 on Sunday!–Courtney and Jack’s older sister), Courtney and Paige hang out after dinner in the dining room. The meal consisted of tutkey, lasagne, duck, three types of cranberries, multiple stuffings, three kinds of potatoes, myriad deserts, and cake for my Aunt Mary’s birthday. mmmmm…..

From Peter Robinson in the Corner (http://corner.nationalreview.com); if you don’t read the Corner, you really should–good conservative insight with a good dose of Catholicism thrown in. (Even some Catholicism/Anglicanism debates every so often!)

Rev. Joseph Fessio studied theology under Joseph Ratzinger, now known to the world as Benedict XVI. Father Fessio had this to say on the NewsHour:
Someone who accepts the Church’s teaching that homosexuality is an affective disorder but realizes it’s a disorder he has and suffers under that and accepts it as his cross and unites himself to Christ crucified can be a holy, devout and good priest.

A priest, after all, is acting in the name of Christ and in the name of the Church. And if a priest is not going to accept the fundamental teachings of the Church, which includes the hard saying that homosexuality is an objective disorder, then he’s a dissenter; he’s doing a disservice to the Church.

I know some of y’all (esp. the non-Catholics that I know read this) are probably sick of all this document talk, but I’m sure it’s going to continue. I’ll try to keep some new things up, though. I’m about done with The Interior Castle and I should have a review up tomorrow or Friday. We’ll see. But between the Vat Doc and the abortion issue, this has been kind of a two-topic circus lately. I’ll try to keep new things in the loop, though.

SCOTUS has taken up another abortion case to follow in the lines of Casey, Roe, Griswold, and the others. This time it revolves around parental consent/notification laws in New Hampshire, which state that parents of a minor must be notified that their daughter is planning on having an abortion before it actually occurs. NARAL and all the other usual suspects are screaming bloody murder (OK, that’s a bad use of phrase there), while conservatives are arguing that this is just good sense. Some evidence for the conservative case:

–If you are a minor child, you need parental consent to do just about anything to your body, from getting a tattoo to having major surgery in a hospital. Your body isn’t really your body until you’re 18 and a legal adult. That’s just the way it is. When I was a senior in high school, we had to get our parents to sign a permission form if we were under 18 so we could watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . Fortunately, most of us were over 18 and could just sign it ourselves. But if we need parent approval to watch an R-rated film in school, or get aspirin from the school nurse, doesn’t it just make sense that for a medical procedure as heavy as an abortion (where you’re given Versed, a highly potent sedative that erases your memory–I’ve had it before, and it’s nice, but it’s heavy) the parents should at least be told ?

–The opponents argue that if it’s a medical emergency then there’s not enough time to tell. Excuse me, but if it’s an emergency, then parents especially deserve to know. Who else knows their child’s medical history as well, or can take care of their daughter after the procedure?

Good Morning America had a father on today whose daughter died after a back-alley abortion 17 years ago–she had one because she didn’t want to tell her parents she was pregnant. That’s tragic, but that doesn’t mean that parents shouldn’t know. The New Hampshire law isn’t even as strict as other states that not just require knowledge but consent before the abortion is carried out.

The law is good and makes sense. We’re not denying anyone’s “right” (no matter how tenuous it may be….sigh). We’re just making sure her parents are aware of what she’s going to do. After all, they have to sign off on every other medical procedure. They should at least know about this one.

I know I’ve written about this a few times on this site, but it was interesting to get “official” reaction today. Most of them ran the usual gantlet–oh, this is bad for the Church, the Church is obsessed with sex (jiminy Christmas, that’s an old one), bishops either firmly supporting it or hemming and hawing about how it needs to be “interpreted”. Yada Yada Yada.

My favorite from today? U.S.A. Today ran an editorial that says “Church document not enlightened” (there we go again! We’re just a bunch of simpletons sitting in the woods and having babies), which is “choosing to foster fear and unrest” among the priests and the faithful. The interesting thing is that the author says right out that she is a product of all-the-way-up Catholic school: grade and high school and college. And yes she’s the former GLAAD executive director….hmm. Makes you wonder how her parents feel about spending all that money having her educated in Catholic doctrine and practice. Doesn’t seem like much of it stuck. Parents: even if you send your child to Catholic school, make sure that you’re teaching them the right stuff at home, too, please. God only knows what some of these schools get away with teaching!

Like I’ve said before, this document is, to me, essentially moot. I mean, you’re required to be celibate, no matter what your personal “tendencies”. That’s just the way it is. I don’t care if you’re gay, if you’re living celibately and chastely as the Church requires, that’s fine with me. If, however, you’re not, or you feel that gays get a bad rap in the Church and are out to crusade against Church policy, then that’s not OK with me, and apparently it’s not OK with the Vatican. Like one Cardinal said:

Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, gets to the common sense of it in a Vatican Radio interview, relayed by the Washington Post this morning: “For the church, denying ordination to gay men is no more discriminatory than ‘if a person who suffers from vertigo is not admitted to a school for astronauts,’ the cardinal said.” If you don’t accept the Church’s teachings on sexuality, how would it make sense for you to be a priest? How would it make sense for the Church to have you serving as a priest? Why would you even want to?” (hat tip: The Corner http://corner.nationalreview.com)

That’s sort of the way I feel. I mean, if you’re a gay man (practicing, I suppose would be the word, or active) then why would you want to give it up? I guess you would feel called to be a priest, but some calls can be mistaken, or what not. It seems to me that if you’re living in a way contrary to Church teachings, or you believe something contrary to Church teachings, then perhaps representing that Church as a priest and acting in the personage of Jesus on the altar is perhaps not the best career choice for you.

There will be more on this, I’m sure, but that’s all I have for now. Feel free to post your own thoughts!

Headline seen today on MSNBC.com:

“regular pot use damages teen brains”

Wow, you think? And I thought that it just gave them a temporary high….

(OK, so this wasn’t religious in nature, but I thought it was funny)

The nation’s Capital has recovered some sanity today, renaming the “Holiday” tree the Nation’s “Christmas tree”. In the wake of the Boston “Holiday tree” debacle, this is a good thing. At least somewhere people are willing to recognize that it’s Christmas! It’s not a Jewish tradition, or a Muslim tradition, or a Buddhist tradition. It’s a German Christian tradition, popularize when Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert (German-born) brought the tradition over from Germany when he married the young Queen. It quickly spread throughout Britian and America, especially with the tide of German immigrants that came here in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s a Christmas Tree–”O Tannenbaum” does not translate to “O Holiday Tree” (at least as far as I know–My German’s not all that functional). I mean, a menorah is not a “holiday candlelabra” or something equally horrific. It’s a menorah. Clearly Jewish. Clearly symbolic of something in their faith. Not that a Christmas tree is really symbolic of anything specific in Christianity, but it’s still a Christian tradition. Either buy into it, or don’t have one. Thank you.

UPDATE: The city of Boston has since renamed their tree a “Christmas tree”, after a loud reaction from the city (and the tree supplier) to their attempt to name it a “holiday tree”. Good job, Boston.

I was reading in some old newspaper articles today (part of my job is reading old paper clippings and filing them, so I spend a lot of time with the newsprint) that Democrats in my state are getting together to form the “Ohio Democratic Catholic Conference” to focus on “social justice” issues in politics. This is just more code for “we’re going to try to distract Catholic voters in Ohio by telling them that abortion and gay marriage aren’t the only ‘Catholic’ issues and we should focus instead on poverty, hunger, and the environment!”

( Exhales very, very loudly. ) OK. Let’s go back to some basics, here. First of all, to be Catholic you can encompass (and probably should) all of the beliefs listed above. Here’s something that people need to pick up on: Catholicism is not a buffet. Repeat that five times. You cannot go through the Catechism like a menu and say, “well I’m believing the part about the death penalty, but I’m rejecting the whole abortion thing ’cause you know, that’s just too much for me. Can’t stomach it.” Or, “I only believe the ‘progressive’ tenets of Church doctrine, so I’m against the ban on gay priests but I think women should be ordained.” It doesn’t work like that. You have to buy the whole package, part and parcel, the kit and caboodle. Not just the kit. Or the parcel. Get it?

The problem the Dems have with trying to play up the “Catholic” part (and the problem Liberal Catholics–a term that makes me cringe–have too) is that they forget the big guns of doctrine to focus on the smaller points. Now I’m not saying that poverty is small or that we shouldn’t worry about homelessness or things like that. We are called to change those things as Christians and to be good stewards of what we have. Abortion is a BIG issue. It’s a defining issue. It’s one where the Church says here is right and here is wrong and you better believe the right or you’re in trouble. Cardinal Arinze has said that denying communion to politicians who support abortion is essentially a no-brainer (his actual response on Catholic Exchange yesterday was that this is something you could ask a child–why ask a cardinal?). This is a BIG issue that you sort of have to go with if you’re going to call yourself Catholic. It’s like not using contraception. In the words of Tea Leoni in Spanglish , “Get on board, pal!”

The article says that this will allow a place for “pro-life Democrats” in the party, but I’m skeptical. The ONE THING holding the National Democratic Party together is the abortion lobby. To go against NARAL and their ilk is akin to political suicide in the Democratic party, unless it’s a smoke-screen for voters just to get someone elected (which in most cases it probably is–yes I’m cynical). I had a friend in college who was a pro-life Democrat, and I just couldn’t understand how he could support politicians whose policies he was morally opposed to. I just couldn’t do it. I won’t vote for a pro-choice Republican! That’s my big issue.

For this to work, the Democrats need to realize that they need to be “on board” on the big issues and the other issues. They’ve got to be pro-life in the womb before they can be pro-life on the street and lobby for better health care and to change hunger and homelessness policy. Democrats often say that Republicans don’t care about the babies once they’re born. But you’ve got to allow them to be born before you can help anyone.

…so says an abortionist (yes, he really calls himself that) in today’s LA Times.(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na- abortion29nov29,1,2971330.story?coll=la-headlines-nation, if you want to read it yourself) There’s really just no comment for people like this, or women like this, who think more about tax policy when they vote than abortion. But here are some choice parts:

There’s a reference in the article about a nurse at the clinic:

For the few women who arrive ambivalent or beset by guilt, Harrison’s nurse has posted statistics on the exam-room mirror: One out of every four pregnant women in the U.S. chooses abortion. A third of all women in this country will have at least one abortion by the time they’re 45. (emphasis mine)

“You think there’s room in hell for all those women?” the nurse will ask.

OK, not that we as Catholics believe that if you have an abortion you are automatically going to Hell. You are only going to Hell if you have an abortion if you refuse to confess your sin. If you go through the rest of your life thinking you did the right thing and you have no remorse for it, then don’t be surprised if God is less than happy with you upon Judgement Day. But I’m not in a position to tell you that you’re automatically going to Hell. That’s not my call. But it’s a lot more likely. And I get a ironic chuckle at the idea that Hell has a limit on how many people it can hold.

From the women themselves:

–A high school volleyball player says she doesn’t want to give up her body for nine months. “I realize just from the first three months how it changes everything,” she says.

–Kim, a single mother of three, says she couldn’t bear to give away a child and have to wonder every day if he were loved. Ending the pregnancy seemed easier, she says — as long as she doesn’t let herself think about “what could have been.” Funny how she never considers “what could have been” for her child could have been a loving home with great parents who loved that child.

–The 17-year-old in for a consultation this morning assures the nurse that she does not consider the embryo inside her a baby.

“Not until it’s developed,” she says. “That would be about three months?”

“It’s completely formed about nine weeks,” the nurse tells her. “Yours is more like a chicken yolk.”

The girl, who is five weeks pregnant, looks relieved. “Then no,” she says, “it’s not a baby.” Her mother sits in the corner wiping her tears. This just shows how far we as a pro-life movement have to go in this country. We must begin to convince people that even at the “chicken yolk” stage, it is still a child with all the components of human life that the mother has. This is a girl who’s aborting her baby. There must be a way to reach her before she makes this decision, and we have to find it.

–Amanda, a 20-year-old administrative assistant, says it’s not the obstacles that surprise her — it’s how normal and unashamed she feels as she prepares to end her first pregnancy.

“It’s an everyday occurrence,” she says as she waits for her 2:30 p.m. abortion. “It’s not like this is a rare thing.”She regrets having to pay $750 for the abortion, but Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. “It’s not like it’s illegal. It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong,” she says. I love it when people equate legality with morality. Say what you want about how abortions still occurred pre-Roe, but people like this might have been (and probably were!) deterred because it was illegal. Illegality has the tint of immorality with it, and that’s a good thing to deter crime.

“I’ve been praying a lot and that’s been a real source of strength for me. I really believe God has a plan for us all. I have a choice, and that’s part of my plan.” Yeah, and God had a plan for that baby, too. Too bad we won’t get to see it. I wonder what religion it is that teaches the idea that killing your babies is part of God’s plan for you? I am reminded of Jesus speaking to the women in Jerusalem: “Weep not for me, but weep for yourself and for your children. For the time is coming when men will say, ‘blessed is the womb that never bore and the breast that never nursed.’” I think we’re there.

– When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. “I don’t think my dress would have fit with a baby in there,” she says. Well then, by all means!

–The last patient of the day, a 32-year-old college student named Stephanie, has had four abortions in the last 12 years. She keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills. Abortion “is a bummer,” she says, “but no big stress.” Yes, well, I imagine once you’ve done anything four times, it becomes “no big stress”. Except for the baby.

Lest you think I’m being too hard on these women–OK, maybe I am,on the more blase among them–but I just find it incredible their thought processes. I know that some of them–maybe even most of them–will regret what they did. If someone came to me and said they had an abortion and it was tearing them up inside, I wouldn’t resort to haranging them on why it serves them right because they did an awful thing, etc. etc. I’d listen as best I can and try to help her as best I can. But we as a pro-life movement must do more to stop abortion by changing the debate, by making it more personal, by helping women to see other options. We must convince them that while it may not be illegal, it is still wrong and they can do better for their children. We as a nation must do better for them.

I would like to wish all of you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving! Be sure to enjoy the family, food, and football tomorrow, and remember to Thank God for all the goodness He’s blessed us with! I will be in Pittsburgh celebrating with my family, and as such, there won’t be any new posts until Sat. night/ Sunday. But never fear–I plan on reading some more books to review, and I’ll be working on material while I’m gone, so there will be new things for you to read when I return. In the meantime, scrounge around the archieves, read some of the books, or go see Harry Potter (very good–review coming soon!).

A Thanksgiving Prayer:

O Jesus, eternal God, I thank You for Your countless graces and blessings. Let every beat of my heart be a new hymn of Thanksgiving to You, O God. Let every drop of my blood circulate for You, Lord. My soul is one hymn in adoration of Your mercy. I love You, God, for Yourself alone.

–from The Divine Mercy Devotional booklet

A book probably more appropriate for Valentine’s Day than Thanksgiving (at least in terms of reviewing date), C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves examines four aspects of love in our lifes: Affection, Friendship, Eros (love between man and woman), and Charity (the love of God). It is a tremendous accomplishment that easily ranks among my favorite works of Lewis (and I”ve read most of his stuff). With his trademark wit and bell-like clarity of writing, Lewis takes us through these four ancient categories, spending the most time on friendship, showing us the trademarks of each type and the benefits and dangers of each. All sorts of love, from the love of animals to marital relations to best friends, and finally the love of God, are covered in depth and make for wonderful reading. Anyone who has ever felt affection for anything will enjoy this book.

I know this is a much shorter review than normal, but this is such a good book that to go any farther I’d just be repeating myself. So I’ll leave it at this. It would make great reading for teens on up. A note: The section on friendship is a bit, shall we say, ‘dated’ by the times–it talks about how men and women cannot really have good friendships because usually the man is more educated than the woman so they cannot share a common bond. Since I have a close-knit group of friends that are almost entirely male (with about 3 exceptions), I found this a wee bit outdated, especially in the age of co-ed college and women in the workforce. But other than that, it is still quite timely.

A piece of the text, from “Friendship”:

Especially when the whole group is togetgher, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those
are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day’s walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on,
our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the
world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim or any responsibility for another, but all are
freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds
us. Life–natural life–has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?