Quick Takes: A lot shorter than last time!

1) People have chastised me on this blog for daring to say that IVF, ART, and donor-conception amounts to manufacturing children and treats them like commodities, like chattel. I've been told that by mentioning such things, I will make those children feel terrible (I guess the idea being that they don't already know that they were conceived in artificial ways). That's why I just consider this a bombshell of an article. It should hit us like a ton of bricks right on our consciences:

What Are the Rights of Donor-Conceived People?

"Third party reproduction corrupts the parent-child relationship 

and disrespects the humanity of donor-conceived people."

Alana Newman/facebook

Alana Newman (one of my new heroes) is a donor-conceived person who provides support for others like herself. Is she allowed to say the following (emphases mine)?

We’ve created a class of people who are manufactured, and treat them as less-than-fully human, demanding that they be grateful for whatever circumstances we give them. While fathers of traditionally conceived human beings are chased down and forced to make child support payments as a minimal standard of care, people conceived commercially are reprimanded when they question the anonymous voids that their biological fathers so “lovingly” left.

Who will chastise her? Anyone? Maybe, instead, we should listen and support her as she courageously tells a truth that no one wants to hear (people like Alana are to sit down and shut up, remember?). I pray that many of you are moved to link her article to your facebook pages and blogs. Yes, it takes some courage to do so, but the time for silence is over. The era of comfortable Christianity is really over.



2) All of the pain described by Alana in that article comes from a philosophy of adults that says "I want it, so I deserve it, so it's a right and you have to give it to me."

Exhibit A:

Wealthy gay dad, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings…. 

“The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. 

“It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise us.” 

He added: “It upsets me because I want it so much – a big lavish ceremony, the whole works, I just don’t think it is going to happen straight away. 

“As much as people are saying this is a good thing I am still not getting what I want.”

(Emphases mine.)

Can you believe that sh….  Oops, sorry. I really try not to cuss on this blog.




3) Moving along to the "we have to laugh or we will cry" category, I'm just laughing:

Abortion activists: Abortion is not just for women anymore!

Yeah, um, so I won't even excerpt anything from that, I'll just let you go ahead and read it yourself.


4) This is so cool! I am not sure that the New York Times really understands what it actually did here, but it's so great! Take the quiz:

How Recent Popes Differ on Key Issues

"Choose the pope who said each quote on seven critical issues."

[Hint: The answer to the title is, "They don't differ, and that's what we've been telling you all along."]


5)  Your daily chuckle!

6) As an introvert, I love, love, love, love, love this list of...

10 Myths About Introverts

Introversion does not equate to being shy or socially awkward (though some introverts might be). Extroverts, when you see us introverts being perfectly friendly, gregarious, and socially adept, please don't laugh and say "Oh, you are sooo not an introvert!" as if we are lying when we say that we are. It just doesn't mean the things that you think it means, thank you very much. :)

7) Now to the most important Quick Take. This sweet little boy, Penn, is about to turn three years old… a precious baby, but blossoming into a big boy! He has been diagnosed with spina bifida, lower paraplegia, pelvic organs dysfunction, and hydrocephalus. Can you imagine the leaps and bounds he would make if he were to get medical treatment here in America? 

Click my photo for more information!

Surely there is a special family out there who could open hearts and home to this beautiful child of God and help him reach his fullest potential on this earth. Please, say a quick prayer for him now that that family will come quickly!

Have a blessed weekend, and thanks to Jen for hosting!

When devout secularists and devout Catholics agree...

…then it's time for everyone else to pay attention, because a point of great clarity has likely been reached.

A few examples of what I mean:

Embryonic Stem Cell Research and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Years ago, I was listening to Ron Reagan, Jr. (avowed leftist and atheist) advocate on television for embryonic stem cell research. Young Ron was strongly in support of using "excess" human embryos from IVF labs for research material. He caught my full attention when he dismissed pro-lifers' objections to embryo research by noting with a smug chuckle: "Look, if pro-life Christians were really interested in the protection of human embryos, if they really thought those embryos were babies, they'd be against IVF as well. But they're not!"

That "gotcha" statement had me yelling speaking calmly to Ron through the TV: "Why, yes! You are right, Ron, that one cannot logically oppose the use of embryos for research and support IVF at the same time. The Catholic Church teaches that both embryonic stem cell research and IVF are immoral. Both violate the dignity of the smallest humans, and ultimately lead to their mass destruction. The Catholic Church is utterly consistent when it comes to the life issues." (Okay, I didn't use those exact words, but that's what I meant.)

Ron thought he was making a clever point. He was; he just didn't realize that the Church had been making that point for years. 

Contraception and Homosexual "Marriage"

In July 1997, Philip Lawler wrote an excellent article about homosexuality in The Catholic World Report, which I've saved to this day. In it, Lawler quotes homosexual activist Andrew Sullivan* from his book, Virtually Normal: 

The heterosexuality of marriage is intrinsic only if it is understood to be intrinsically procreative; but [with the acceptance of contraception] that definition has long ago been abandoned by Western society.

The response from Lawler, a faithful Catholic:

If Sullivan's premise is correct, then his logic is inexorable. If [sex] is robbed of its distinctive quality -- its fecundity -- then there is no rational explanation for a public policy that restricts that franchise to heterosexuals.

They are right. If a culture accepts the marriage act stripped of its essence and purpose, with willfully sterilized sex now the norm within marriage, then that culture will be hard pressed to find a philosophical leg to stand on when traditional marriage needs defending. Pro-contraception Christians are in a particularly hard spot.

The redefining of marriage began with society's acceptance of contraception, and both gay activists and the Catholic Church know it.

(Update April 2013: More secularists make the connection, here.)

Contraception and Abortion

Those who approve of contraception but are uncomfortable with abortion will deny the link between contraception and abortion all day long. But how then to explain the similarity of reasoning between the liberal, pro-abortion Supreme Court justices and the pro-life Pope in Rome? Though diametrically opposed on this issue, both sides "get it": There is a symbiotic relationship between contraception and abortion that cannot logically be denied.

Liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 1992 (emphases mine):

...for two decades of economic and social developments, [people] have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives...  

...In some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception.

Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae (emphases mine):

But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practised under the pressure of real-life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.

If opposing sides understand the connection, why is it hard for the "middle" to see?

Abortion and Infanticide

Atheist Peter Singer (a utilitarian and celebrated Princeton bioethicist) believes that most people are missing something important in the debates about human life and death. His logical mind agrees with the Catholic Church that "viability" and "birth" are utterly arbitrary designations when discussing the morality of abortion and infanticide:

[I]n discussing abortion, we saw that birth does not mark a morally significant dividing line. I cannot see how one could defend the view that fetuses may be 'replaced' before birth, but newborn infants may not be. Nor is there any other point, such as viability, that does a better job of dividing the fetus from the infant. Self-consciousness, which could provide a basis for holding that it is wrong to kill one being and replace it with another, is not to be found in either the fetus or the newborn infant. -- "Taking Life: Humans", from Practical Ethics, 1993.

Singer understands that abortion and infanticide are not morally different. "Viability" and birth itself are illusory lines drawn by abortion proponents to make themselves feel a moral distinction where there is none.

Of course, while Singer horrifically uses this truth to make the case for infanticide, the Church uses this same truth to call for the protection of all innocent human life, beginning at conception.

Pope John Paul II called the battle we face The Culture of Life vs. The Culture of Death, with lines clearly drawn. But those who deny the very existence of a culture war insist that the "truth" lies somewhere in the gray and shadowy middle, and that we can safely dismiss the two "extremes". I am grateful, therefore, for the refreshing clarity of Peter Singer when he spoke about his philosophical, spiritual, and cultural nemesis, Pope John Paul II:

"I sometimes think that he and I at least share the virtue of seeing clearly what is at stake."

May the rest of us have the grace to see it clearly, too.





*Sullivan identifies as Catholic, but he takes the position of the secular left when it comes to gay "marriage" and social issues. He has described himself as a "religious secularist" and a "dogged defender of…secularism."


.

One more IVF post (blame Fr. Tad, the brainiac!)

The blogs saw a flurry of emotional IVF posts and debates recently. Then, the inventor of IVF won the Nobel Prize last week. Then yesterday, my parish bulletin carried this article, by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D (who earned a doctorate in neuroscience from Yale University, did post-doctoral work at Harvard, has four undergraduate degrees -- in molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, biochemistry and philosophy -- and has two degrees in advanced theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. I note that so that no one jumps in to claim that he or the Church is anti-science.)

I think he says it all. Have a read:

Babies In Test Tubes

When I give talks about in vitro fertilization (IVF), I usually ask my audience the following question: "How many of you know a baby born by IVF, or know a couple who has tried to get pregnant this way?" Usually about half the hands in the room go up. Then I ask them to raise their hands if the couple was Catholic. Virtually all the same hands go up a second time. I have the sense that Catholics are making use of IVF at about the same rate as non-Catholics, and that most of them are only vaguely aware of the Church's position on making test tube babies.

When asked why IVF might be immoral, people will usually mention the extra embryos that are frozen or discarded. Such embryos are certainly a serious concern, but they are not the primary reason the Church insists the procedure is immoral. Even if IVF were done without making any extra embryos at all, this way of making babies would still be morally objectionable, because the procedure strikes at the very core and meaning of marital sexuality. It substitutes an act of laboratory manipulation for an act of bodily union between spouses. It turns procreation into production. IVF is really the flip-side of contraception: rather than trying to have sex without babies, we try to have babies without sex. Because many Americans have come to view sex largely in terms of recreation, ignoring its procreative orientation, they have lost touch with the grave violations that occur both in contraceptive sex and in making babies in test tubes.

Clearly, the moral violations that occur in IVF do not reflect upon the child, who is innocent. It is not the baby's fault in any way. The child has no control over how he or she got here. Regardless of how a baby comes into the world, whether by IVF, whether by adultery, by pre-marital sex, or even by cloning, that baby is always a gift and a blessing. The problem with IVF is not with the child, but with a decision made by the parents concerning how to pursue the satisfaction of their own desire for a child. In other words, babies, even when very much desired, should not be brought into the world by making use of disordered means such as adultery, pre-marital sex, IVF, or cloning. They should be brought into the world only within that intimate love-giving moment of the marital embrace. Children are entitled to come into being as the fruit of a singular parental love that is uniquely manifested in the spousal moment of bodily surrender to each other. Through the incredibly rich language of the parents' bodies, through their body to body contact, the new body of their child is engendered. In their one-flesh union, they enflesh new life. That intimate bodily embrace is a sacred action that only spouses may share, and it represents the unique and privileged locus, by God's design, in which human love is translated into new life. IVF violates this design by replacing that love-giving act with an act of production, whereby we manufacture our own children in petri dishes and test tubes, as if they were products or objects to be manhandled at will. In this way, IVF incidentalizes and adulterates sex, reducing it to another arena for manipulation according to our own desires. When we take this immoral step, others quickly follow, including the freezing or even the discarding of our own children, as if they were a form of medical waste. By making test tube babies, we first violate the sacred human act by which we hand on life. It is then but a short step to go further and violate the very life itself that we produce in the laboratory.

Is it not reasonable and right to insist, as the Church does, that new human life should be the fruit of married love, carried out through bodily self-giving between spouses, this act which allows each partner to enrich the other with the total gift of himself or herself? The marital act embodies spousal love directly, exclusively and authentically. Can we say the same for IVF, where the woman upsets her delicate hormonal cycles and subjects herself to repetitive injections with powerful drugs to make her body produce unnaturally large numbers of eggs, and where the man may be expected to go into a back room with salacious magazines and videos to "provide a sample"? Can we really say that IVF embodies spousal love in an authentic and exclusive way when a lab technician ends up being the causal agent of the pregnancy, instead of the spouses themselves through a sacred act proper to their married love? By any stretch, can we honestly believe that IVF is faithful to God's design for marriage?

We sometimes tend to brush the ungainly and unsightly parts of the procedure under the rug and instead try to focus on the result, the baby, so as to mitigate the disturbing reality of what we are really engaging in. Some couples also may rest their approval for IVF on a perfunctory assumption, namely: "We have a right to a child when we get married, so any means, even IVF, should be okay." But the deeper truth is that we never have a right to a baby. A child is not our property or our possession. Rather, a child is a gift, one we hope God will send us, one we stand ready and eager to receive, but certainly not an entitlement or a right for us. When we marry, we properly have a right to those beautiful, life-giving acts we call marital acts, which open us up to the mysterious divine spark at the heart of human love. Those remarkable marital acts are the only human acts appropriately ordered to engendering the incredible gift of new human life.

Catholics, we need to know this. And if you want to see a list of Fr. Tad's articles on every conceivable bioethics issue out there, click this icon and bookmark it. You won't be disappointed.

Two very different women

The abortion/contraception/IVF discussion over at Sew's blog today got me thinking. In the comment section, Miss Gwen brought up Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, who dedicated her life to promoting birth control.

Here's part of what Miss Gwen said to Sew:

I know you probably have much disdain for Margaret Sanger (I'm not saying she's perfect) but one of the reasons birth control came about was because of her observations and experiences in the slums of NY working amongst immigrant and poor families where complications from pregnancy and mother fatality as well as infant fatality were rampant problems. The ability to plan/anticipate for children as well as be a healthful woman was ground breaking.

Immediately, I thought of another woman who worked amongst the poor -- the poorest of the poor, in fact. The woman who chose to serve in one of the worst slums in the world, who went into the filthy streets to pick up the cast-offs dying alone in the gutter: Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Both Mother Teresa and Sanger observed the poor and saw much suffering. And yet, the two women couldn't be more different. Let me count the ways....

• Mother Teresa believed that every human life has infinite, intrinsic value and is created by a loving Father to love and be loved.
• Margaret Sanger believed that some people are "human weeds" and "unfit" and thus need to be culled. 

• Mother Teresa embraced every race of people equally as children of God.
• Margaret Sanger was a known racist whose legacy is built on the desire to limit the "reckless breeding" of black people and immigrants.

• Mother Teresa tenderly cared for the physically handicapped and mentally challenged.
• Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who advocated the elimination of those who have physical or mental problems.

• Mother Teresa was a consecrated virgin, pure of heart and totally faithful to her beloved Spouse, Jesus Christ.
• Margaret Sanger was a serial adulterer who openly proclaimed that sex for sport and pleasure trumped the marriage vow any day.

• Mother Teresa was truly humble, and she radiated joy and peace to all who came in contact with her.
• Margaret Sanger was a proud, troubled, selfish elitist who was never at peace.

• Mother Teresa's idea of a "healthful woman" is a woman whose body is working as it was designed to work. "Health" includes educating a woman on the signs of her own fertility and providing safe, sanitary conditions for childbirth. Mother Teresa knew that women are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God, that there is nothing wrong with the way a woman's body functions, and that we don't need to be chemically neutered or surgically mutilated to be "healthy."
• Margaret Sanger's idea of a "healthful woman" is a woman on synthetic hormones/steroids which are accompanied by harmful and even deadly side effects. "Health" means derailing a working bodily function so that it does something completely unnatural and against the body's own design. In the case of sterilization, "health" means mutilating healthy organs so that they no longer work as intended.

• Every bit of Mother Teresa's care for the poor, sick and dying was done for Jesus Christ, her Beloved. Her heroic life was lived in service to God.
• Margaret Sanger worked under the slogan of "no gods, no masters." Sanger served herself alone.

• Mother Teresa's legacy is the thousands of joyful, smiling sisters in her Missionaries of Charity order who continue her work to this day, loving and caring for the poorest of the poor in 133 countries around the globe. Her legacy has blessed the lives of untold millions.
• Margaret Sanger's legacy is Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in America with tentacles all around the world. Her legacy has ended the lives of untold millions.

Mother Teresa loved the poor, Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate the poor. I don't know about you, but if I'm a poor person (or any person!), I'll cast my lot with Mother Teresa any day.

Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us!

(Read the follow-up post here.)

What the heck is so bad about "rules" anyway?

I've never understood why people routinely bash the Catholic Church for having "rules," but it's a classic complaint. 


Recently, I read yet another anti-Catholic comment on a blog, and I thought I would address the main points here. I have edited the original text for clarity and grammar, but it's mostly intact. The commenter's words are in red italics:


I don't want to overstep my bounds here...


(She is about to overstep her bounds here.)


...but I just went through and read all the comments on this post and I have to say, I don’t agree with many of them. 


(Some Catholic commenters had defended the Church's teaching on the immorality of in vitro fertilization.)


I’m not a religious person in the sense that I do not subscribe to any organized religion. 


This line is one of the most common around: "I don't believe in organized religion." I heard a commentator on TV recently make a good observation: Is disorganized prayer somehow more desirable than organized prayer? As for me, I prefer order whenever I can find it, in my home, in my town, in my government and yes, in my religion.


One of the reasons for that is I don’t believe in all the “rules” they make for their followers. 


Who are "they" and what are the "rules"? I wouldn't believe in some random people making random rules, either. However, in the Catholic faith, we believe that truth has its origin in God. If the Catholic Church were just making up arbitrary "rules" willy-nilly, with no basis in reason or objective truth, then there would be no Catholics. I know I'd be gone in a heartbeat.


Many "rules" seem so close-minded and unfair. 


They may "seem" that way to you, but I would bet my last dollar that you haven't studied the reason and meaning behind the "rules". As a random example: If one had no understanding of the beauty of marriage or of the catastrophic damage that results from adultery, one might think it was "close-minded and unfair" that a person can't have occasional sex with the cute man down the street.


I was raised a Catholic... 


Forgive me, but that is usually the signal that someone has no clue what the Church teaches or why, and that some very strong but misguided opinions will soon follow. 


...and even got confirmed (though I didn’t want to). 


Your parish did you a disservice. No one should be confirmed if he or she objects to the sacrament.


I know that the Catholic Church is against IVF, and I have talked with my grandmother (who is VERY Catholic) about it at length. The bottom line is that I just don’t understand how an institution that is supposed to be created in love can deny people a chance at something they so desperately want. 


If you talked about it at length, and yet you still frame the debate as people being "denied a chance at something they so desperately want," then either your grandma didn't have good resources to give you, or you have missed the point. Because "denying desperate people what they want" is not what the Church is about. You wouldn't claim that the Church's teachings against stealing or lying or adultery are simply there to "deny people what they desperately want," would you? Perhaps there are deeper truths that you are missing.


It just seems to arbitrary to me. You can use drugs but not this procedure? What is that? 


"That" is a consistent moral ethic. One may use medication or surgery to restore fertility (i.e., restore bodily health) so that a child may be conceived naturally. But one may not create a child outside of the marital embrace. That's a very clear line. Not arbitrary in the least. 


I feel like the Catholic church is full of discrepancies like that and it makes it difficult for me to take any of their “rules” seriously.


You may "feel" like that, but you need to study more if you are truly interested. The "discrepancies" that you "feel" exist are simply your own misunderstandings based on extremely limited knowledge. I used to misunderstand the Church's teachings, too, and then I set out to learn why the Church teaches what she does. It is the lack of discrepancies in Church teaching, i.e., the breathtaking consistency of it, which convinced me to remain Catholic when I was ready to jump ship.

I’m not trying to be judgmental here, though I’m sure it sounds that way. 


Actually, to me it sounds more like ignorance than judgmentalism.


I don’t presume to say religious people shouldn’t be religious or shouldn’t follow the “rules” of their religion. 


Thank you. (By the way, I'm not sure why you keep putting "rules" in quotes? Do you have something against rules in general? Can you imagine a family, a community, or a nation without rules? I don't think anyone would want to live there.)


But I do think religion should be about spirituality, not a huge bureaucracy that creates endless rules to follow, especially when those rules speak down to some of its followers and keep others from feeling accepted or achieving happiness.


The Catholic religion is based in reason and truth. It has ritual and structure and focus. It is not some fluffy, feel-good, nebulous "spirituality" designed to make us feel giddy. Now, don't get me wrong: Catholicism certainly does have spirituality. In fact, it's the most mind-blowing, transcendent spirituality of any religion I can think of, and you can read the works of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, or any of the great Catholic mystics to see what that looks like. I think you'd like it. 

I guess what I want to say is that I hope a person's reasons for not wanting to do IVF are her own, and not something that's forced on her by someone else. 


The Church proposes, never imposes. Every soul is gifted by God with free will. It is sacrosanct, and neither God nor His Church will touch it. God forces no one to love Him or do His will, and the Church forces no one to follow her teachings.


If you believe in someone else’s reasons for not doing IVF then that is one thing, but if you feel beholden to an institution and that is why you’re not doing it, even though you want to, well that is a different situation entirely. I hope you can find your own way to your children and feel good about the path you chose.


Can you think of a situation in which what we "want" to do is not what we should do? And, is it possible that an individual could be wrong about something? And could a 2,000-year-old "institution" possibly (maybe even probably) have some wisdom to impart?


I, for one, don't feel "beholden" to the Church. I feel grateful for her clarity, her guidance and the consistency of her teachings, whether in season or out. And yes, I feel grateful for her correction. I love that Church teaching is based in truth and the dignity of the human person. I love that she speaks the truth in love, even when that truth is wildly unpopular and even hated, and when she is the lone voice in a culture which says that anything goes as long as you "want" it desperately enough.


Rules? If they are based in truth and love, then rules are freedom.


Again with my favorite quotes from G.K. Chesterton:


"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."

"[When the convert] has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."

True story

About five years ago, I was part of a group teaching a "Back to Basics" class in our parish. The goal was to educate Catholics about the fundamentals of our faith, since so many of us received weak formation growing up.

My topic one night was contraception. I presented the biblical, historical and logical reasons for the Church's teaching against contraception, and I also touched on the issues of IVF, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, etc.

We had a lively discussion that night, the students were engaged, and I felt very good about the whole thing. I felt even better when a woman approached me after the class. She was energized and full of compliments. She thanked me for the explanations that I gave that night, and she told me that she had known in her gut that IVF was wrong. She went on to explain that she and her beloved sister had both struggled with infertility, and that her sister had ultimately turned to IVF to conceive her children.

"I tried to convince my sister not to do it, that it was against God's law and Church teaching, but I didn't have the right words," she told me. "I am so happy that you are teaching about this! Thank you so much. People just don't know, but we need to inform them. Nobody talks about this."

In my excitement and pride, I basked in the afterglow of the "I-taught-a-good-class" high. Thank you, Lord, for using me tonight! I feel great! This woman understands the truth, and it is so good to be here together, of one mind, awestruck at the beauty of our faith!

Smiling, she continued: "Even though I also had infertility issues, my husband and I never considered IVF. We used artificial insemination to conceive our daughter. She is such a blessing! I am so grateful that we were able to conceive her in a way that didn't go against our faith."

My heart dropped. I was not prepared for that. I hadn't mentioned artificial insemination in my talk.

I had about two seconds to decide what to do. I could let it go, but that wouldn't be right. Not only would this lovely woman leave uninformed, but there were two or three students who had lingered and were listening. Or, I could tell her the truth, and then watch her happiness turn to... what? Anger? Indignation? Denial? Despair?

Quick prayer to the Holy Spirit, and then, with a softened voice and an apologetic look: "Oh.... I am so sorry to tell you this, but it is also wrong to conceive a child using artificial insemination."

In an instant, the joy went out of her face, and she became very quiet....

I stumbled on a bit about the whys of it, was as gentle as I could be, assuring her that her daughter was a precious gift and was cherished by God and the Church no matter how she was conceived. The woman was very gracious, but I could tell that her mind was now troubled and that she wanted to be somewhere else. She thanked me again and she left.

I felt horrible, but I was looking forward to seeing her at the next class and getting a chance to talk to her again (she was a regular). Turns out, she never came back. We never spoke again.

A lot of things went through my mind, but primarily I was wondering if she had left the Church. I was saddened and disappointed at the possibility, but I eventually forgot about it.

Fast forward about a year or two. I am reading our diocesan newspaper and there is a feature story about IVF and related issues, several pages long. The article profiles Catholics who had undergone IVF treatments but have since come to understand and embrace Church teaching.

One segment profiled two sisters, both of whom had suffered from infertility. One had undergone IVF, and the other had been artificially inseminated. I looked at the large, full-color picture of the two smiling sisters with their precious children, and I recognized one of them as the woman from class!

The article filled in the rest of the story for me. In the interview, the woman said that she had gone home shaken from a doctrine class after she had learned that artificial insemination was wrong. However, she loved her faith and was prepared to defer to the Church. She later discussed all she had learned with her sister, and they both continued to study the issue. Ultimately, they both came to see the truth of Church teaching, and both women went to confession. They now educate others on the truth as often as they can.

The joy that both of them exuded in both the interview and the photo was simply awesome! I was relieved and elated!

The moral of the story? You bubble-dwellers already know: Witnessing our faith to others is often uncomfortable and even cringe-worthy in this culture. Sometimes, we would prefer to crawl into a hole and die rather than speak an unpopular truth to a skeptical or hostile crowd. But if we stay silent, we will never know what good God might have brought about had we spoken. For every ten people who reject what the Church proposes, there may be one who is transformed. And there may be others who initially scoff, but who years later put the pieces together.

So, if you ever feel sick to your stomach or embarrassed to share a "hard saying" of our Catholic Faith (especially to fellow Catholics), please pray and push ahead anyway, speaking the truth in love. God is always ready to honor our feeble efforts!

PS: I am thankful that God allowed me to see the fruit that eventually came from that awkward experience. Usually we don't get such sweet consolation, but that's okay, too. One of the charisms of Mother Angelica's Poor Clares (or so I've heard) is that they are not permitted to know, until Heaven, the fruits of their prayers and offered sufferings. So even if the beneficiary of an answered prayer should write and thank them for a miracle, the superior would not let the nuns know. That blew me away when I heard it! Sacrifice with no immediate reward. That is true love.

Related posts:

IVF, and what to do with "excess" embryos
One more IVF post (blame Fr.Tad, the brainiac!)
When devout secularists and devout Catholics agree
Before you consider IVF, read this

IVF, and what to do with "excess" embryos.....

A few of the bloggers have broached the difficult subject of in vitro fertilization recently, and I am glad they did. It needs to be talked about. People today are oblivious to the fact that there might be any moral problem with it at all ("Hey, we want a baby, so we will do whatever it takes to get one" is the mentality), and yet it is a moral quagmire!

Imagine the wrenching dilemma of a faithful Catholic priest who is asked by a contrite couple what to do with their many frozen embryos left in limbo after IVF. Embryos which the wife is unable carry to term, and which the couple cannot afford to keep frozen. Here is an excerpt from an article by a priest in our diocese, Fr. Pete Rossa, who faced this very dilemma:

One Sunday morning I was approached by a married couple who wanted me to meet their beautiful twins. The couple was elated that after many attempts to conceive they finally had received twin gifts from God. Still, they were troubled. After a few minutes they revealed that their twins were conceived through multiple attempts at in vitro fertilization; they loved both children and beheld them with pride and joy.

Not until after their children were born did the couple discover that every human embryo is a child according to the Church. They now faced terrible new dilemmas; their first dilemma was that “selective reduction” was utilized so that their twins would survive-- an abortion had occurred. And, without knowing, they incurred excommunication. Their second dilemma was that the wife no longer could carry children to term; yet they had 15 embryos in a cryobank. They didn’t know what to do and asked me for advice. Their strong desire for children led them down an unexpected slippery slope. They felt trapped. They are not alone in their quandary: In 2002, more than 400,000 embryonic children were being stored in the cryobanks in the United States, according to a Rand Corporation study.

The couple I spoke with that Sunday also mentioned that they had suffered severe financial difficulties because of the extreme cost of the multiple in vitro procedures but wouldn’t relent on their need to pay the storage fees as they couldn’t abandon their embryonic children. They were experiencing severe financial difficulties due to the debt they incurred. They expressed concern that if they declared bankruptcy or were unable to pay the storage fees, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves; they might have to cease paying the storage fees and lose what remaining control they had over the rest of the frozen human embryos.

Physical, economic, spiritual and moral torture is what they were experiencing.

To find out what Fr. Rossa ultimately told them, and to read a deep and detailed analysis of the role IVF in the present Culture of Death, read the whole article here. It is long, but it is so important. Nobody seems to know this or speak of it (outside the Catholic bubble), yet it's a situation that needs to come screaming into the light!

You know, it always astonishes me that even pro-life Christians, who know that life begins at conception, will go the IVF route and not seem to have any problems with producing dozens of embryos (their children!) and then disposing of them. Can someone help me with that? Is it just a mental block? I really want to understand it, because it troubles me greatly.