That being said, I know that there is confusion and disagreement regarding this report; some claim Pope Francis is changing Church teaching to openly accept cohabiting and gay couples, and others assert that while this report does not represent revolutionary ideas, it is full of fuzzy double speak and loopholes that give people too much license. I do not doubt these two sides will be involved in some embittered arguments, and unfortunately many will abandon compassion in their righteous zeal.
This lack of compassion and sympathy could keep us
butting heads with our brothers and sisters in Christ in perpetuity - and
that's just what Satan wants, eh?
Let’s look at the abortion debate in this light. Abortion
was not a topic directly addressed by the Synod, but it will illustrate my main
point, if I can ever get around to it! I can feel compassion and pity for the
women who walk through the doors of abortion clinics. I can do more than sympathize
with them – I can empathize because I have been inside, contemplating my own
future.
Pro life advocates
- some, not all- can come across as snarky, self-righteous zealots,
making blanket statements about women who would choose to abort as callous,
selfish feminazis at best, and murderous fiends at worst. Some pro choicers,
such as Katha
Pollitt on last week’s Diane Rehm show, agree that abortion is mainly a
religious issue that is pushed by ancient, patriarchal religions and has nothing to do with the real choices
women must make. As if embryology, social science, philosophy, and psychology
do not in some part contribute to this debate. Her condescending tone was
extremely vexing and made me feel she believes pro lifers are ignorant yokels.
But if we are honest, we make them feel the same way.
I don’t know how others will come to have compassionate
dialogue, or at least feel deeply for one another, without walking a mile in
their shoes. I wish I hadn’t experienced a flirtation with the abortion clinic,
but at least I have gained a frightening knowledge of myself and an empathy
that prevents me from denouncing all pro-choicers as inherently evil.
My experience was this: I became intimate with a high
school boyfriend and continued in this relationship into my freshman year of
college. I had exercise-induced amenorrhea during this time, which may have
prevented ovulation and accounted for my not conceiving for so long. However,
as I gained a healthy weight in college (the freshman 30 for me – I weighed
about 96lbs at the end of my senior year of high school), I started noticing
what I thought were signs of pregnancy: sore breasts, bloating, and moodiness.
I was terrified. I had earned a prestigious academic scholarship that covered
my tuition and provided me funds for purchasing
books and other materials. If I were to have a baby and take time off from
school, I would lose my scholarship. I would have to get a job to support
myself and my baby (the nature of which would depend on the response of my
family – would I be kicked out?), and likely not return to complete my studies.
I had been an upstanding, “A” student since junior high, a member of the
National Honor Society, was a musician in my parish’s choir, and an active member
of the youth group. But my need for affection and intimacy with a guy – and its
natural consequences – was going to shatter everything. Worst of all, my family
and friends would be shocked and disappointed. I walked around campus in a
panic for a few days, not very capable of rational thought. I think I presented
a collected front to everyone, but I don’t quite remember. Perhaps I was so
good at pretending to be a good girl (I knew my actions were sinful and considered
myself almost beyond God’s grace at this point) that I managed to save face
while I contemplated what to do next.
I finally went to the computers in the school library and
looked up the directions to the nearest Planned Parenthood. I was fuzzy on the
entire extent of their operation, but I knew they offered free pregnancy tests.
What I would do with the results of the test was a huge question mark shrouded
in fog. You may wonder why I didn’t seek out a Catholic women’s center or some
related resource. The reason is simple: I didn’t think of it! Planned
Parenthood stood out in my mind like McDonald’s: You go to the former to get a
pregnancy test, and you visit the latter to get a burger and fries. Powerful
branding, huh?
So I made an appointment and drove in that afternoon. I filled
out some paperwork and peed in a cup, and then I put the cup behind the little
metal door and shuffled out to the waiting room. I sat there in a cold sweat,
trying to look collected. I could not meet eyes with the other women in the
room. I wonder how they felt – were they frightened children (I was not yet
18), too? I picked up some literature about – gulp – abortion. The pamphlets
were in pastels and soothing fonts, not unlike our NFP guides, full of stock
photos of happy-looking women who had made their “choice” and were very happy
with the results. My head was spinning – if the test came back positive, if I
were pregnant with a baby I did not want and could not support by a boy I knew
I didn’t love – what would I do? It shames me deeply to this day to answer, “I
don’t know”. At that moment I was called to the window where the lady told me
my test was negative. Negative! Never had I known such relief. Nor such deep
confusion and remorse for what I had been contemplating. I never, never, never
at any point reasoned that I could be carrying life inside me, a life with
inherent dignity and an immortal soul. My swirling thoughts were directed
entirely inward but stopped at my uterus. It wasn’t something I consciously
did; in my panic I could only think of all the choices I was shutting off by making the choice to be sexually
active before marriage. I wanted to make things “right”, which to me, more than
anything else, meant saving face.
A few days later I got my first period in over a year.
That’s what the symptoms meant – the bloating, tenderness and moodiness. Never
had I welcomed this event with such happy tears. The whole experience had been
so stressful and traumatic that I knew I could no longer persist in relations
with this young man. I also saw how I had likely warped his view of women and
relationships, something I will be culpable for in this life and the next. Here
is where I differ from some of my peers – rather than seek a method of
contraception that would allow me to have “safe” sex (AS IF! Have you seen the failure rates with some of this
stuff? Even Katha Pollitt in that interview admits birth control is not 100%
effective), I was determined to NOT do the thing that gets you pregnant in the
first place. I broke off the relationship with my boyfriend for good and
shunned his acquaintance and that of our mutual friends. It was painful to go
cold turkey from sex and from the companionship of all our friends, but I knew
I was too weak to admit the company of anyone related to the situation. I had
fallen so many times before.
My best friend and now husband listened to an abridged
version of my story and directed me toward a priest he had been seeing for the
sacrament of Confession. I was afraid to confess to our own parish priest, who
knew I worked with youth and was a big part of the music group. So I drove to
another church and met with a new priest. I immediately burst into tears upon
walking into his office, and he folded me in his arms and spoke to me with such
compassion and love that I was able to make a full confession and leave with a
spark of hope. I had not been able to attend Mass without anxiety (where I
committed the sin of sacrilege by receiving Communion unworthily), nor had I
been able to have any kind of quality prayer life, thinking I was unable to
return to Him with all the sins I had heaped on my head.
I can’t say I didn’t have issues after this; my spiritual
life has been a series of fits and starts, backtracking and sometimes
resentment. Resentment and anger that I can’t do whatever the bleep I want,
especially when it comes to the Church’s teachings on sexual morality.
Frustration at my own weakness, but most of all some compassion and empathy for
other women who have been there in that clinic contemplating a frightening
choice. How are we to approach these dear ones? With name calling and
judgement? I know that without the love of my mother (whom I told at least part
of this to), my best friend, and a holy and dear priest, that I may have taken
a totally different path. Mother Church opened her arms to me and let me weep
on her mantle. She took me back in while I was still broken, and she waits for
me patiently when I continue to stray.
The message of the synod warmed the cockles of my stony
heart because it speaks to my own experience as a wounded woman deep in sin.
While I do not wish this experience on others, I want to share it because I
think it is hard for some of my holy and righteous peers to feel merciful – those who remained chaste before marriage,
who never practiced contraception, who speak and write with a power that comes
from purity unsullied by dark experiences. Not merciful to the repentant, but
merciful to the sinner before
they have come back in full communion with the Church.
I thank God every day that He sent compassionate people
to deal with me gently in my weakness. This treatment, rather than encouraging further
sin, elevated my thoughts and helped me to strive for better, if only an inch
at a time. Praise God for Holy Mother Church and for Pope Francis!
