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February 01, 2005

Catholic Priorities

In January I went to mass as part of the festivities of mi sobrina cara's Baptism; christening her as a child of God. I have issues with going to mass these days. It seems everytime I do go, the sermon is a recruitment speech for priests. This may say more about how often I go to mass than about priestly sermons but still, seeing as how The Church deems me unfit to be a priest (It's a chromosome thing.) this targeted marketing campaign really peeves. There was also the time I went to my cousin's Bacclaureate the Spring after Sept 11. The priest saw this sermon as an opportunity to make a stump speech as to the glories of a Born Again Christian in the White House. The kicker was when he alluded to the notion that the "money men" in the WTC where being punished by God because they spent so much of their lives on the wrong things...like making money. It was all I could do not to scream like Jesus in the temple at such hateful doctrine. Instead I muttered under my breath and tried to keep from boiling over. In the end, I think I did a decent job even though the people around me were surely aware of my ire. To those who read this and were there: It could have been much, much worse. That man was no priest for my God.

So Magda's mass was actually pretty nice. Like myself, other family members not often seen near the altar of our family God also attended. It was nice to be together. I've always loved singing favorite hymns in church and this church was beautiful. No matter how the frailty of men may sully religion, temples of God seem to have a certain peace and inviting solemnity built into their very bricks. While the sermon was a little formulaic and obvious, it wasn't incendiary. I thought I was going to manage to enjoy communing with those of my faith for the first time in quite awhile....Ah Well, it was mostly nice.

The final announcement by the priest was a plea in response to the anniversary of Roe V. Wade to stop legal abortions. There's the propaganda.

I'm pretty sure I don't like the idea of abortion. But I also don't like the idea of a bunch of rich, white, middle-aged men deciding my fate as a woman. It's a difficult and deep question and I'm not sure there is one answer for everybody. But there it is. The pope and his peeps say it's wrong and there you have it. That's not, however, what most American Catholics say.

In this article there is mention of an LA Times poll which "found that Catholics' views on abortion were as fractured along similar lines as those of the nation at large. Of all those surveyed, 29% believed abortion should always be legal; 30% of Catholics shared the same view. More than 40% of respondents thought abortion should be illegal with rare exceptions; 43% of Catholics agreed."

I would much rather Catholics stridently and visibly work on something all Catholics would agree is a problem that needs to be solved immediately; protecting children from inappropriate priests and fixing whatever problems are inherent in the clergy that makes it a feeding ground for pedophiles. If only the papacy and the Church were as resolute in decrying and eradicating that murder of innocence. Abortion is not as cut and dried as our papacy would have us think and though pedophilia is, it's not a priority in the Catholic Church.

I am further perplexed at the attitudes of some in my own family. My aunt and uncle asserted you can not consider yourself a Catholic unless you agree that abortion is a mortal sin and should be illegal. I am still a little bit astounded at the simple arrogance of this thought. To be fair, there's plenty of rhetoric that maintains this viewpoint. But according to that way of thinking, in the 17th century it would have been a mortal sin to think that the earth revolved around the sun. Gallileo was certainly brought to task for such forward thinking.

I have had "issues" with the Catholic Church for awhile...years before I was confirmed. I think my concern that I did not agree with most of the Church's political doctrine is what made me wait so long to get confirmed. I took these concerns to the nun who ran our confirmation classes in our personal interview. She alleviated my fears and asserted that what makes one a Catholic is belief in the Apostles' Creed. Outside of that there is right and wrong but as long as there is belief in the Creed there is Catholocism. Wow. That lady would've made a great priest.

At the least Magda's Baptismal priest's final statement and the conversation with my aunt and uncle did get me thinking about the issue and made me wonder why I am so adamant about my stance. An insightful conversation with my mother helped alot. When discussing the issue, she asked me if I thought an abortion would be okay for me. I said I didn't. She said that if I understood abortion to be a sin for myself and I were to have an abortion; that would be a mortal sin. To commit a mortal sin, the sinner must be aware of the sin and still commit it anyway. While in some ways this seems like a loophole, it also makes sense. I believe I have the right to have an abortion but that I am obligated to choose not to. But wait a minute. That puts the power to choose a life with God in my hands....a woman's. Ooh, subversive stuff.

My parting argument with my aunt, to which she agreed was a valid point and sagely suggested I get involved on a grass roots level, was that I have a real problem with a bunch of men telling me what is right before God in my woman's body. Perhaps if women weren't demoted to servitude and subjugation in the Catholic Church we might have a true "catholic" or "universal" disposition. When I think of all of the young women who worship Brittany or yearn to find the man of their dreams on television while in a jacuzzi with twenty other women or think it's okay to stay in an abusive relationship I wonder what they are lacking. Why do they think so little of themselves, the beauty of their womanhood, their nobility and their rights? Then I think of the Catholic Church and I understand. The Church denegrated the only female contemporary of Jesus Christ, Mary of Magdalene(the namesake of my darling niece,) by erroneously labeling her a whore for 1500 years. It doesn't matter that they officially rescinded this label in 1969. I was born a full year later, was brought up within Catholic schools, catechism and youth groups, and believed she was a prostitute until I read a book of fiction last year.

Maybe I'm not a Catholic because I expect more from my religion than this beleaguered existence to which they've entrapped women. I will say this. My niece, my future nephews and nieces, all of my extended-family children and any child of my own will know the value of the spirituality of women. If the Pope doesn't like it, well then excommunicate me if you must...but you are still wrong in the eyes of God...and I think you'd be smart enough to know that.

Posted by mermu at February 1, 2005 07:39 PM

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