Mercy and Remarriage

I am currently reading Fr. James Martin’s A Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, and, in the opening pages, he presents his understanding of what makes Jesuit spirituality distinctive. He lists four characteristic traits: finding God in all things, becoming a contemplative in action, looking at the world in an incarnational way, and seeking freedom and detachment (5ff). In particular, Fr. Martin takes the characteristics of “finding God in all things” and looking at the world incarnationally to mean that we are called to meet people "where they are": in their concrete situations of mundanity or even sin.

Our first Jesuit pope is quite consciously applying these Jesuit characteristics in his own papal teachings. For instance, in his latest apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, the Pope tries very hard to find God in all circumstances, even the circumstances of those in an irregular state of marriage (namely, the divorced and civilly remarried). Pope Francis wants very much to affirm that the individuals in those relationships can still possess virtue and are beloved by God, and that their irregular relationships themselves contain elements of true love and goodness. Pope Francis, the bishop of mercy, wants very much to reach out to the people in these circumstances and offer them the aid of the church’s pastoral care.

These goals and intentions are very laudable and very necessary reminders in our hyper-judgmental age. Conservative Catholic rhetoric can easily sound as though there is no good at all in those who would "obstinately persist in their grave sin." But certainly just because one is living in an irregular marriage doesn’t mean that there is no virtue or goodness left in that person, or even that this irregular relationship doesn’t contain anything that is, in a very real way, good. And of course the Church should reach out to these people in every legitimate means available, recognizing and working with those seeds of goodness.

But when the question arises: should the divorced and remarried be admitted to communion? – Well, then it’s the “liberal” Catholic’s turn to be judgmental. For now we hear that denying communion to the divorced and remarried is “unmerciful.” But if “conservative” Catholics can be accused of being judgmental by denying the goodness of the divorced and remarried, then “liberal” Catholics are just as guilty when they assume a lack of mercy in the hearts of those who want to uphold Church teaching.

Amoris Laetitia (despite the infamous footnote) does not explicitly overturn CCC 1580 on this issue, but some have hoped, in the name of “mercy” that it tends in that direction. My question, though, is: should it? Would it be “merciful” to permit the divorced and remarried to receive communion? Should the Church, in the name of mercy, allow it? This is a question which I don’t think Fr. Martin’s four Jesuit characteristics can help us answer. Because while these four characteristics tell us how to engage with the world, they don’t tell us why – to what end are we engaging with the world? And on this point it becomes striking that Fr. Martin omitted the Jesuit motto itself from his list of Jesuit traits. For the motto is: ad maiorem dei Gloriam – for the greater glory of God. This is the goal of our interactions with the world.

Now, why does the notion of the greater glory of God make a difference in our understanding of how we are to approach the situation of those who are divorced? Because it implies that the story doesn’t end simply with our “meeting people where they are” and “finding God” even in the midst of their broken circumstances. That’s only the beginning of the journey. The goal is to then lead them from where they are to where they ought to be: to a situation that makes God’s glory manifest. And marriage, as a sacrament not only of the love between a man and a woman but also of the covenant between God and the Church and also of the eternal communion of the Triune God, is a very powerful means of making God's glory real and present in the world today.

It is not a mercy simply to tell people that it’s “good enough” to settle for their broken, sinful circumstances – that they don’t have to strive to attain the virtue for which they were made and to which they are called. Such a settling is not good enough for human beings, nor for the Church, nor for Christ who calls us to perfection (Mt 5:48). Mercy is only mercy when it frees us to do good, not when it allows us to remain trapped in sin.

Mercy can also never be contrary to truth. To allow the divorced and remarried to receive communion is, in effect, to declare that they are not in a state of “manifest grave sin” (because those in a state of manifest grave sin, according to Canon Law, are not permitted to receive communion). But objectively speaking they are living in a state of adultery, in a state of objective moral evil. They are living as though married to one person when, objectively speaking, they are indeed bonded to someone else in covenantal marriage. There is no getting around this objective truth unless we want to deny the truth of Christ’s teaching on marriage. This is not a judgment on the subjective state of their souls or the goodness of their intentions or the value of their new relationship. This is not about judgment of someone’s moral worth or virtue. This is the objective truth.

It is vitally important to remember this fact. Because, as I said before, the Church has been accused of being “judgmental” when it denies the divorced and remarried communion. But the Church, in her teaching on this matter, does not presume to see into a person’s conscience and judge her personal relationship with God. The Church is making a decision based on what, in the Church’s eyes, is an objective truth. Communion is not being withheld as punishment or as a "prize" withdrawn for lack of virtue. 

In this context, though, Jesus’ example of mercy towards the adulteress is often brought up in this context (John 8:2-11). How can we throw the first stone when so many of us sinners receive communion despite our sin?

There are two ways, as I see it, to reply to this argument. First, let’s look again at Jesus’ example: yes, Jesus forbade the throwing of stones. But he did not deny that the woman was an adulteress, or that her adultery was a sin. What he did deny was our right to condemn her to death for it. But denying communion on the grounds that a person is in a state of mortal sin is not to condemn that person to death. In fact, if we look to St. Paul in First Corinthians we find the opposite: it is death to receive communion unworthily (1 Cor 11:27-29). In a very real, very biblical sense, denying communion to those living in an objective state of adultery is an act of mercy. This isn’t some convoluted logic to justify unmerciful attitudes. This is Scripture.

But what about the argument that, well, who can be “worthy” of the Eucharist? Aren’t we all sinners? Here’s where the idea of the Eucharist as “medicine for the sick” is often invoked. But as canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters points out, if we’re going to treat the Eucharist as medicinal we must also recognize that medicines aren’t to be used willy-nilly. They come with warning labels, caveats, and restrictions.

And the restriction here relates not only to the sinful state of adultery, but also to the very nature of marriage as a public sacrament. Causing public scandal is, in itself, a grave sin, and Canon 915 prohibits those who are persisting in a state of manifest grave sin from receiving the Eucharist. The “manifest” part means precisely public and visible. And marriage, in the Catholic viewpoint, is not a private expression of your devotion to another person but a public declaration made before God and the Church. But if you are living in a state that, objectively speaking, is a public repudiation of an eternally binding, public vow you made to another person before God and His Church, then you are in a state of manifest (i.e., public, visible, and "scandalous") sin – no matter how you look at it. Again, it’s not a matter of adjudicating the worthiness of your own conscience. In the eyes of the Church, it’s a matter of objective reality.

There are those who will not accept this. But to deny it is to deny Jesus’ teachings on the indissolubility of marriage, Paul’s teachings on the Eucharist, and the Church’s understanding of those teachings handed down through the ages. 

It is not an easy thing to hear. But the Christian life is not easy. That’s why so many people left Jesus. His teachings are hard. The path of virtue is hard. And our pastors should be walking it with us, not encouraging us to abandon it. This is true mercy: to meet sinners where they are, but for the purpose of drawing them to glory. As G.K. Chesterton put it, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." But we have to try.  We must find practical, practicable ways for divorced people to understand and live their lives in ways that are both true to their vows and to the reality of their marriages, but respectful of their own dignity. We must uncover the beauty of the Church’s teachings on marriage in a way that draws people towards that beauty, rather than presenting Church teaching in a negative, prohibitory, and Pharisaical way (and in this regard, actually, I find Amoris Laetitia quite refreshing). We must help people “see God” in their situations, in the sense of helping them to discern how God is calling them to virtue through their difficult circumstances.

I speak from some personal experience here. When I was young my father was close to leaving my family: divorce papers were signed and in my mother’s hands. My mother has readily admitted that if it weren’t for her Catholic faith she would have agreed to a divorce immediately, and indeed in most Christian denominations she would have been seen as justified in doing so. It was (needless to say) a difficult time for both of them. And it was a difficult time for me, as a child who had to watch and wonder about the future of my family while all the time having absolutely no control over the situation.* 

My father came back, though, and my mother forgave him. And witnessing the way that they have rebuilt their marriage and our family over the past twenty-eight years has been truly inspiring. My mother’s capacity for forgiveness has been amazing, even though at times she has had to overcome the temptation to vindictiveness. My father’s capacity for repentance has been equally beautiful, even though at times he has had to overcome the temptation to resentment. Their relationship is not perfect (and indeed has many odd quirks that make me shake my head in bewilderment), and the road has been difficult, but they are both better people – wiser, humbler, and holier – for having walked it, and walked it together. And, in the strangest way, their marriage may actually be stronger now because of it.

I’m not saying that my parents’ solution is everyone’s solution. But I am saying that it is possible, with God’s grace, to bring goodness even out of a deeply troubled or broken marriage. It is possible, with God’s grace, to walk the difficult road of being called to celibacy if one is, by necessity, separated from his or her spouse – and of growing in virtue on that path. If you find yourself in this situation remember that you are being called to manifest God’s own patient, everlasting love with sinful humanity! How can it be unmerciful for the Church to help you answer this call?

It would, indeed, be unmerciful for humanity to be deprived of the beauty of our Church’s understanding of marriage as an eternal covenant that is absolutely unconditional and has an objective reality apart from any subjective or relative state in which you find yourself. The truth of your marriage doesn’t depend on your feelings towards your spouse, it doesn’t depend on where you are or anything you’ve done or anything you’ve failed to do, it doesn't depend on any perfection or lack thereof in you or your spouse. Your marriage has a truth and reality and meaning in God that transcends any human weakness or error or sin. Your marriage is held in the palm of God's hand. Given that only the Catholic Church explicitly holds to such an understanding, I think that perhaps it is one of our great gifts to the world. The fact that we as human beings have the grace-filled capacity to enter into such a covenant with each other, to create this reality with another person - a reality that that is then respected and treasured by God - this, in itself, is a remarkable gift. I pray that we don’t deprive ourselves of it.

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*And here I must add: the moral obligation of separated or divorced parents towards their children’s psychological and spiritual needs must absolutely be addressed in any discussion of pastoral care on this matter. Too often, far too often, children are told that the divorce has “nothing to do with them,” but although this may seem true to the adults, this is not how children experience separation or divorce. For children’s identities are intimately connected with their parents’ identities; children know intuitively that they have part of each of their parents literally enfleshed in their bodies, and one parent’s rejection of the other will necessarily feel to the child like a rejection of herself. I don't think nearly enough attention has been paid, in our culture of easy divorce, to the very real trauma this causes to children.

Perfection and Parenthood

Prime the presses! A new study by Dr. Darcia Narvaez, reports Dr. Greg Popcak, tells us that "when children [aren't] given things like affection, free play and a warm home environment, they turn into adults with decreased social and moral capacities." On the flip side, it turns out that having affectionate parents and a stable home life leads to happier children who grow into happier adults.  Who knew?  I guess Dr. Narvaez' thesis that science can only tell us what common sense already knows is validated here.  

Okay, I'm sorry.  The snark is unnecessary, but I still haven't recovered from my anger at Dr. Popcak's last piece about breastfeeding.  I haven't read Dr. Narvaez's new study, which isn't out yet and is due to be reported in the journal Applied Developmental Science. But based on the summary, the evidence was gathered through surveys of 600 adults asking them to recall their childhood experiences. Adults who remembered their childhoods as more affectionate reported better psychological well-being. Again, this isn't at all a surprising result.

But, this result must raise the old correlation versus causation question: does a happy childhood directly cause happiness in adulthood, or does having a happy temperament help you remember your childhood as a happier one? Different experiences impact different people in different ways. A person with an anxious, depressed temperament might recall past experiences as more traumatic than someone with a more resilient personality. Even aside from the issue of how temperament and personality affects the brain's processing of events, how do you methodologically validate someone's self-reported experience?  Memories are notoriously malleable.  I know for a fact that I remember my childhood very differently than my parents do.  Neither one of us can verify the "truth" of the past.

There are also some serious metaphysical questions regarding the study's rather reductionistic assumptions about morality, and the equation of psychological well-being with moral goodness.  (I can think of quite a few saints - perhaps even the majority of them! - who would give the lie to that equivalency.)  But even aside from all this, I really have very deep reservations about anyone telling me that there's a certain set of things you must do in order to raise moral children.

Look, it's one thing to give advice or to have scientifically-based opinions on what will help our children be physically and psychologically healthy.  We do all want that for our children, and we do have a moral obligation to care for their well-being as much as it is within our power.  But so much of this talk tends towards making parenthood seem like an impossibly daunting task: if you can't, or won't, do x-y-or-z (be it breastfeed for two-plus years, or baby-wear, or co-sleep, etc.), not only are you endangering your child's medical health, you may also be damaging them psychologically and making it harder for them to be responsible moral agents!  And then we wonder why so many young people are opting out of parenthood, afraid of its responsibilities and terrified of doing it "wrong"!  

But the truth is, you can be an "imperfect" parent and still be a good one - even a great one!  That's because parenthood is not about mastering a skill set or performing some set of discrete tasks.  It embraces your entire identity as a human being.  And as human beings, we are all imperfect sinners.

Parenthood is not a job; it's a relationship between two imperfect, sinful people.  And there's no scientific formula for relationships.  Because relationships, in their deepest (and dare I say moral?) sense are beyond the bounds of science: relationships are about the mystery of two souls encountering each other.  

You are not going to be a perfect parent.  You are going to make mistakes - and that's okay.  You are giving your kids a chance to learn forgiveness and compromise.  You aren't always going to be able to put your kids' needs first - and that's okay.  You're teaching them self-sacrifice and empathy. 

But remember too: your child is also not a perfect child.  Catholicism teaches the truth of original sin, and even the most innocent baby carries its burden.   Your kids are going to make mistakes - and that's okay.  They are going to learn how to ask for forgiveness and how to accept mercy.  And you are going to lavish affection and love on your children - and that's okay, too.  Because then they will learn the limitless, unconditional love of God.

So yes, take from the science what you will.  But know also that parenthood, like any relationship, requires flexibility, adaptability, responsiveness, and discernment.  There is no one path to sanctity, and there is also no one path towards "good" parenting.  Good parenting comes when your strengths and weaknesses meet and intertwine with those of your child's, when you experience the fearful joy of knowing another as another, when you establish your own, intimate ways of sharing love and showing affection.  

There's no scientific study that's going to tell you how to do that.  And that's the true freedom - and challenge - of parenthood.

Singleness and Selfhood

I'm usually an avid NPR listener, but lately I've found myself having to shut the radio off in annoyance.  Today was one of those days.  Tom Ashbrook on WBUR was interviewing Rebecca Traister, author of a new book entitled, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.  Now, to be perfectly fair I didn't listen to the whole interview (because I turned it off), and I haven't read the book, so I don't know all of what Ms. Traister had to say.  However, I did read her NPR interview with Terry Gross.  And so I feel a bit more comfortable commenting on what I briefly heard on the radio this morning.

Tom Ashbrook raised the question that the choice to delay marriage is seen by some as a choice to prolong adolescence.  I wish there were a transcript of Mr. Ashbrook's interview, but Ms. Traister responded by saying, essentially, that she disagrees: delaying marriage means that you have to take on more responsibilities (like, for instance, learning how to do handy-man type jobs, managing one's budget all on one's own, etc.), and that means you're more "independent" and therefore more of an adult.  As she said in her interview with Ms. Gross:

. . . what happens is that men and women wind up living more independently in the world for more years, and both of them wind up accruing skills, both professional and domestic, so that by the time - if you're talking about hetero couples - by the time men and women are meeting and partnering and marrying, it's much more likely that the woman knows how to use a drill and do the laundry and the man she may be meeting and partnering with also knows how to do his laundry and feed himself and use a drill. . .

To me equating "adulthood" with a woman's ability to use a drill and a man's ability to cook is a rather doubtful proposition.  But all right, yes, I understand that she was making a broader point about independence and also about the ability for people to enter into marriages with a more balanced sense of how to share domestic labor.  And I do agree that we have done an awful job at teaching our adolescents these basic skills, meaning that they have to learn how to do them as adults.

But acquiring a certain skill set or even being "independent" is not what makes you an adult.  The reason marriage is (or was) seen as a marker of adulthood is because it is (or was) the most important commitment beyond one's self that a person could make.  It binds you to another for the rest of your life.  It is this sense of commitment that makes one an adult - this ability to make an existential choice to devote your life to someone (or Someone) bigger than yourself - that is the marker of adulthood.

Then Mr. Ashbrook raised the question of "selfishness," to which Ms Traister replied to the effect that we, as a society, have a hard time seeing women as people who have "selves" that need to come "first."  This is where I turned off the radio.  All right, yes, patriarchy and misogyny have stripped women of their sense of selfhood - I understand that, I really do, and it upsets me too.  But the idea that we can even have a "self" independent of commitment to others strikes me as fundamentally flawed.  We don't lose our sense of selfhood when we commit ourselves to another person in marriage - we find ourselves.

That's not to say that we have to get married in order to have full selfhood.  The Catholic Church, with its communities of celibate men and women, has certainly never taught this.  Even for non-religious, the Church has affirmed the single life as a vocation.  But regardless of our marital status, we do have to have a certain level of selflessness, and an ability to commit fully and entirely to another person (or Person), in order to discover who we really are - not what we can do or accomplish, but who we really are, our virtues, our vices, our deepest hopes and fears, the source of our hope and our faith.  We must die to self to find one's self.

We are defined by who we love, and making a commitment like marriage ought to be an affirming statement of such a definitive love.  Unfortunately in our society it often isn't.  So perhaps it's a good sign that some are rejecting a flawed institution.  Certainly the increasing numbers of people opting out of marriage should make those of us who are its proponents rethink how this institution is lived and experienced.  But I wouldn't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Marriage, at its best, isn't about nice feelings and finding someone who "complements your lifestyle" (or, as Ms. Traister puts it, who will "improve on the life" that you are building).  It's about growing in virtue, growing as a human being, learning how to love and give yourself to another.  And that's what's missing in the discussion.

The Gift of Silence

Silence is a gift of God, and like all God's gifts it is both a blessing and a curse.

What a great blessing it is, to be offered the chance to be silent.  It doesn't come often.  Our world is full of constant noise.  The pull of advertisements trying to get our attention, of pundits trying to shout each other down, of politicians vying for our votes, of pop music battering down our senses with its relentless beat.  The push of our own vanity to get our voice in, to make ourselves heard, to offer up our witticisms and our jokes, our advice and our opinions.  What a great blessing it is to be offered a chance to escape this push, this pull, and simply sit in silence, neither being addressed by noise nor being impelled to make it.

Yet it is also extremely difficult to sit in silence.  True silence is very difficult to achieve.  First one is assailed by thoughts of all the other, more productive, more efficient things one could be doing.  I could be doing housework, or paying bills, or checking e-mail, or running an errand. . . Then one is confronted by sheer boredom.  Silence is boring.  It sits on you like a weight.  It cries out to be alleviated, an itch that demands to be scratched.

Then, when you have convinced yourself (truthfully) that you would most likely not be using your time more efficiently (think of all the hours wasted "surfing the internet," anxiously checking Facebook or e-mail, clicking on nonsense and watching inane YouTube videos) - then, when you have finally pushed past your boredom and entered a state where you can hear yourself think clearly, calmly, meditatively - then the real difficulty begins.  Because then you are confronted, face to face, with yourself.  With who you are, honestly.  All your failings, your flaws.  Your sinfulness.  All the times you have been ashamed or guilty.  All the times you have not been who you know you ought to be, who you want to be.  You see yourself as you are - a fretful, anxious, tiny little creature, frittering away purposelessly, meaninglessly, without goal or direction, a blind bat crashing into walls, a frantic bird slamming into the bars of its cages because it does not know how to free itself.

But even then you have not mastered silence.  Because silence insists we move even past this - past our own thoughts that reveal to us the smallness of our lives.  Silence insists we stop that onslaught of thought, and listen.  Listen to the voice of God, which can only speak in the silence.  Hear as He shows us the grandeur of His majesty, His greatness.  See the beauty of His plan for all creation and know - yes, our smallness in this plan, but also the wonder that we have a place in this plan, a place He has destined for us, and us alone, for all time.  Feel the humbled awe of knowing that God has deigned to speak to you - to you, wretched creature that you are! - and that His words are words of love and assurance.  Give your sins to Him and He will wash them clean.  Give your weakness to Him and He will make them strengths.  Give your purposelessness to Him, and He will draw it into His purposes.  Give your smallness to Him and He will make it great.

Only in silence can we come to recognize our smallness and God's greatness, and only in doing so can we become great - and achieve the greatness God has destined us to achieve.

Giving to Charity - and Dancing with the Devil

At my son's school I help to coordinate the Lenten Rice Bowl Project that benefits the Catholic Relief Services.  Yesterday a friend of mine told me that some pro-life parishioners at our parish had sent her information objecting to CRS' efforts to collaborate with secular or non-Catholic organizations in impoverished nations because those organizations often promote abortion and contraception.  Some research into the matter revealed that the main objections seem to be coming from a group called the American Life League, who published a very odd article that opens with an implied dig at the leadership of Carolyn Woo as a "woman" and a "layperson."  In addition to the charges that CRS is not "pro-life," the article also condemns CRS for its employment of a married gay man.  The USCCB has tried to take a stand against such criticisms in support of CRS, but that will never stop some people from trying to be more Catholic than the bishops.

These internecine quarrels can't help but make me sad. We sound just like the Pharisees critiquing Christ for eating with the tax collectors.  Now people might object that Christ eating with tax collectors was simply meant to show that He transcended "cultural norms" and was able to see past irrelevant external actions to the "heart."  But really his action was more than that.  Christ wasn't just showing His transcendence of cultural norms.  Tax collectors were sinners, and Jesus never denied that they were sinners.  Jesus was not just transcending cultural norms; He was transcending human justice by offering fellowship and friendship to those who were engaged in very serious sin.

But some may argue that CRS has gone farther than simply offering fellowship or friendship; they've offered material cooperation with sin.  To me it seems there are two different issues at hand in this discussion.  First is the question, as some have argued, of whether or not CRS has directly promoted actions that violate Church teaching while at the same time trying to hide or obfuscate these violations.  If CRS is engaging in behavior contrary to Church teaching they should absolutely be called out on it.  And certainly I don't object to doing your due diligence when it comes to where you should donate your money.

On the other hand, there is evidence that CRS is trying to remain reflective and responsive about these issues.  Moreover, I think we should try to be sympathetic to the fact that they are a worldwide organization that serves many people who aren't Catholic and whose employees likely encounter moral dilemmas I couldn't possibly imagine.  And I do think it reflects an excessive hypercriticalness to believe that, before you donate to a charity, you must first scrutinize every minute aspect of its conduct.  If you feel that way, I doubt you'll ever find a charity - or even an individual person, for that matter - you'll feel entirely morally comfortable in assisting.

Consider a parallel but more personal case: let's say your younger sister is really struggling financially, and you've given her a loan to help her pay her rent.  A few months later, you find out she's had an abortion.  Now, perhaps the money you loaned her didn't go directly to her abortion, but you still feel that you materially supported it because the money you gave her freed up the money that did pay for it.  Let's say that, after her abortion, she shows up homeless at your doorstep.  She's not at all repentant for having had her abortion, but she's looking for a place to say for night.  Do you say no?  And if so - why?

I leave that question open for consideration, realizing that it's not quite the same as material cooperation between charitable organizations, although I do think it raises similar moral questions.  But the second issue in the CRS case, and the one I want to deal with here, regards how we decide when to cooperate with people or groups that don't embrace Church teaching on certain matters.  My gut feeling is to say: well, how else are we supposed to convert them except by our witness?  And how else are we supposed to witness to them unless we work alongside them and demonstrate our good will?

And even aside from the question of our witness to nonbelievers - are we supposed to not do the good that our faith mandates that we do because we are so afraid of somehow, somewhere coming into contact with the evil that our faith says we should avoid?  This idea seems, again, contrary to the Gospel.  Recall St. Peter, fearing to eat unclean foods (Acts 10:9-15), and God's declaration: Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.  This isn't about God suddenly deciding that the rules of the Old Testament no longer mattered or were just "cultural norms" and not a moral matter.  Eating impure foods had everything to do with morality - with one's worthiness to stand before God as a righteous person.  But God tells Peter not to be afraid of becoming impure through his contact with impure foods, because God's purity was stronger than the impurity of any food - or, for that matter, any person.

It was on the basis of this revelation regarding food that Peter felt morally justified in visiting Cornelius, the righteous Gentile.  It was perfectly possible for a Jewish Christian in Peter's situation to have decided that, because visiting a Gentile was anathema, he should not go to Cornelius even to spread the Gospel.  In this way he could have kept himself "pure," even while doing great harm to Cornelius by neglecting the opportunity to bring him to Christ.  In the same way, we can keep ourselves "pure" by refusing to give except to individuals or charities who fit some lengthy moral checklist.  But Christ seems to be saying: Don't neglect doing good out of fear that you'll be tainted by evil.  Rely on my purity to protect you, and be an instrument of my purity to others.  If a Catholic organization is, itself, actively promoting actions that violate Catholic moral teaching, that's one thing.  But if such an organization remains mindful of its own house, they needn't fear being "contaminated" simply because they cooperate with other groups on projects that do not violate the moral law.

How else are we to call people to repentance and conversion?  If we refuse to do good because we object to their evil, all the world will see is our refusal to do good and our self-righteous sanctimony.  But if we can find a way to object to their evil while at the same time doing the good we can agree on, we've opened a door.  We have found a bridge, and we can use that bridge to lead them to conversion.

We can't wait for people to recognize or repent of their sinfulness before we offer them our hand in friendship and fellowship.  That's not Christ's way.  There's no evidence that Jesus waited for people to repent before giving them His mercy.  Think of the adulteress whom the Pharisees brought before Jesus asking if she should be stoned.  There's no indication that she said she was sorry before Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you."  Yes, He did say: "Go and sin no more."  But that injunction came after He offered her mercy and forgiveness.  Sometimes people will argue that we should only offer forgiveness when someone has repented.  But that's sort of like insisting that someone stand up and turn around when they're tied to a chair facing a wall.  You have to untie them first, before they can rise to face you.  And the way Christ unties us is through His mercy, His understanding, His love.

As a mother I sense the truth of this phenomenon.  I remember once my son spoke disrespectfully to me and I sent him to his room.  I told him to come out when he was ready to apologize.  He stayed in there for hours - first crying loudly and angrily, then sitting in silence.  Finally I went to knock on his door.  He was lying on his bed facing the wall.  I sat down next to him, put my hand on his arm, and said, "What you did was wrong.  But I still love you, you know."

That did it.  He turned around to face me, burst into tears, hugged me and said, "I'm sorry!"  It was my affirmation of my love for him that opened the door to his apology.

And that's what people need from the Church: an affirmation of God's love.  That comes before repentance is even a possibility.  God's action first, then the change of the human heart.  This change doesn't occur miraculously or overnight.  For an individual it might take a lifetime; for a group or a culture or a nation, it might take centuries.

If a Catholic person, or a Catholic organization, can show people the face of God's love, we must take a chance to do it.  We can't wait for someone to convert before we offer them our aid.  CRS can't wait for every secular organization in the world to follow Catholic moral teaching before it offers its cooperation in doing good.  Yes, it's a dangerous path.  It will require constant vigilance; we will have to be constantly mindful that we're not tempted by the world's wisdom.  But Christ tells us: do not be afraid.  Rely on His mercy, His righteousness, His purity to keep us safe.          

Morality, Mercy, and Breastfeeding

There's a saying that if you're conservative when you're twenty you have no heart, and if you're liberal when you're sixty you have no brain.  But even though I grew up in a conservative household and still in most ways consider myself to be one, I find that my own journey is taking the opposite route.  As I grow older my heart is speaking to me more loudly than my brain.

When I was young and naive, I assumed the world operated under certain, definable circumstances.  Children were raised in economically stable, two-parent households.  Families were mentally and physically healthy and intact.  When I was young, I didn't realize that such a state of affairs was a privilege.  I assumed, as all children do, that my reality was the norm, and within this reality certain moral rules were expected to be obeyed.  And, indeed, the privileged reality in which I lived made it possible for those rules to be obeyed.  

Then I grew up.  I met people whose mental and physical health was shattered, who had grown up in broken homes, who had faced severe material deprivation.  Seeing them in person, hearing their stories in person, meant more than simply reading about them in abstraction in the newspaper.  For my own part, I got married, became pregnant unexpectedly, and suffered severe postpartum depression in the aftermath.  I was lucky enough to have a supportive spouse and excellent medical care, but I knew that many women in my situation didn't have those blessings.  

I am older now and, though I am probably still very naive and definitely still very privileged, I recognize more and more that the places where personal sin - an individual's decision to violate those moral rules I thought were so inviolable when I was young - and structural injustices overlap are incredibly difficult to disentangle.  And it seems more and more unjust to me for the fortunate among us - those of us who exist above and outside of those structural injustices - to condemn the least fortunate for not having the moral heroism to do what for us is no heroism at all.

But just as I was coming to this realization, there emerged in the political sphere a cohort of conservative Catholics (a group of which I considered myself a member!) who, in the wake of statements by Pope Francis indicating a desire to think more deeply about the Church's moral positions on things like contraception and divorce, rose up with the objection that negotiating about, compromising on, or even discussing the Church's position on these matters amounted to a slap in the face - a betrayal of the loyal children of the Church who have tried to uphold these moral teachings.  I don't mean for a moment to cast doubt on the faithfulness of these people, or to imply that it's been easy for them to abide by the moral ideal the Church has held up for them.  Whether they're using NFP or choosing celibacy after a divorce or even refraining from receiving the Eucharist because they've remarried after divorce, these sons and daughters of the Church are laudably upholding the faith.

But then again, no one could doubt that the elder brother of the Prodigal Son was similarly hardworking, faithful, and loyal.  And he too felt betrayed by his father's empathy for his wayward brother.  People will object, no doubt: "Well, but the Prodigal Son repented.  He returned to his father's house."  True enough.  But I think we must honestly ask ourselves: are we doing enough to keep the path to repentance open?  Are we running out, like the father, to meet these returning sinners halfway?  Or have we shut the gates against them with a goodbye and good riddance?  How many have we driven into the arms of the devil by our own lack of mercy?

It's become painfully obvious to me that we conservative Catholics have a strong tendency towards pharisaism, so focused on upholding the letter of the law that we have forgotten its purpose and meaning.  But we must follow Christ and recognize that morality - living a moral life - is not about obeying a set of rules but about becoming a certain kind of people - people of virtue and charity, and, dare I say, of mercy and compassion.  

This is not to say that rules aren't important.  At their best, rules are an expression of the spirit, just as the Pharisaic rule not to pick grain on the Sabbath was an expression of the praiseworthy spirit of honoring God on His holy day.  But Christ recognized that rules, if followed too rigidly, too unquestioningly, and too legalistically, can become divorced from their spirit and can, paradoxically, contradict the spirit they were meant to embody.

This does not mean we should feel free to change the rules willy-nilly, at the whim of cultural shifts and popular opinion.  In our own time, it is important to recognize that abortion, for instance, is an evil and that acquiring one is a grave matter.  It is important to know that contraception is not part of God's plan for married sexuality and is therefore a serious affair.  It is important to understand that divorce is not God's intention for human marriage and should never be undertaken lightly.

But also not part of God's plan are abusive or adulterous spouses, anencephalic babies, postpartum depression, or even, for that matter, the Zika virus.  And we do need to reflect every now and then on whether the rules, as they are practiced and applied, still adequately reflect the spirit they were meant to embody.  To think that the Church's moral rules provide us with a script from which we can in no circumstance deviate without imperiling our immortal souls seems to me not only unjust, but a violation of human freedom and an insult to God's mercy.  Try to tell me that there is no moral difference between the woman seeking an abortion because her child is anencephalic and a woman seeking an abortion simply because a baby may interfere with her career.  The suggestion that the situations are equivalent is prima facie ludicrous, but conservative Catholic moral discourse seems to have no way to make a distinction. 

This is a serious problem.  If our moral thinking depends upon the world being the "best of all possible worlds" then we will have to face up to the consequence that we are consigning the vast majority of the human race to despair.  But we seem so afraid that if we loosen our grip even a little on the moral laws we hold so dear, moral anarchy will reign.  We can't imagine a situation in which it might be possible, for example, to acknowledge that contraception, though an evil, may be permissible in some extreme circumstances, without our minds leaping down the slippery slope to the idea that contraception would then be permissible always and everywhere.  But there is a world of moral difference between an impoverished woman with little access to health care using contraception to prevent pregnancy during a serious outbreak of disease and a middle-class Western woman using contraception because "now's not a good time."  Can we find a way to talk about this difference?  Because if we can't, we've only demonstrated the hardness of our own hearts.

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Though I've talked mostly about the Church's teachings on sexual ethics here, the real impetus for my writing down these thoughts came from an essay regarding breastfeeding, of all things.  A Catholic psychologist with a wide public audience has written an article praising the work of a moral developmental psychologist who has written that breastfeeding is essentially a moral imperative if you want your children to thrive.  After what must have been powerful backlash to his article, he updated his piece to add: "People are free to parent however they want.  They don't need my permission."  But the dismissiveness even of this comment belies his arrogance: he's already stated that it's God's will that you breastfeed, and if you don't your denying your child's birthright.

As I mentioned before, I suffered severe postpartum depression after the birth of my first child - so severe that I was hospitalized twice.  Also, in my early twenties I had breast surgery to reduce severe back pain - a medically necessary intervention to improve the quality of my life.  At the time I didn't know if I would ever be married or have children, let alone breastfeed them, but I did know that the surgery would very likely make it impossible to breastfeed without supplementation.  When I eventually did have children, my low milk supply combined with the depression made breastfeeding an insurmountable feat.  

Did I do everything I could to breastfeed?  No, I didn't.  I could have pumped, taken drugs, bought fancy devices that would provide supplementation while supporting breastfeeding.  I also didn't "preserve my children's inheritance" by keeping my breasts intact even though they were causing me extreme pain.  And though I tried to breastfeed my first (until I ended up in the hospital a week later), I didn't even really consider it with my second.  My priority was to keep my mental health stable enough so that I could care for my baby.

According to Dr. Popcak, I suppose I should feel devastated by the fact that I didn't go to morally heroic lengths to ensure that my children received breastmilk.  I know that breast is best for baby, medically and probably morally too.  But I wasn't willing to suffer physically disabling back pain or extreme psychological distress.  Does this make me selfish?  I don't know.  I only know that not having back pain means I can now pick up heavy objects (i.e., children) without distress, and not having PPD means I can actually take care of my kids because I'm not in the hospital.

I'm tempted to make a laundry list of the things I have sacrificed for my family's sake in order to "prove" that I'm not selfish, or at least that I've made up for the selfishness of choosing not to breastfeed.  But that's besides the point.  What is the point is that a life of virtue is not defined by a single choice made in a very hard circumstance, even if that choice is regrettable.  We can't do all the good that's out there to do, nor can we avoid all the evil that's out there in our fallen world.  We try to avoid doing the bad as much as we possibly can, and we're grateful that we have the Church's guidance on what is bad.  But if we're in an impossibly difficult situation, where it's hard to see how to pursue the good without doing bad, or where our only choices are between bad things - well, it seems to me that we have to do the best we can, and rely on the mercy of God and the righteousness of Christ to save us.

If this is true of breastfeeding it must also be true of other things as well, whether it's lying or stealing, or using contraception or even killing another person.  I can't make exceptions for myself in my own situation and refuse to extend that courtesy to others.  And if we, as followers and emulators of Christ, can't extend compassion to people in horrifying circumstances who are forced to make tremendously difficult moral decisions, simply because we're afraid of implying that we condone those who treat those same decisions with facile indifference - well, then, I fear that our own souls are the ones in peril.