Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Bags of Money

Simcha Fisher has one of the blog posts up that she comes out with sometimes -- the kind that bring you up short for a moment, then lead you to ponder the state of your soul, but in the friendliest way possible. It's about the new ministry founded by former Planned Parenthood clinic manager Abby Johnson, whose mission is to help former abortion-industry workers "through these four integral aspects: emotional, spiritual, legal and financial."

Not surprisingly, Johnson's plans have met with scorn and disgust -- from pro-lifers.

Simcha writes:

When Johnson announced her initiative on Facebook, some putative pro-lifers responded with anger and disgust at the thought of making it easy for abortionists to leave the industry. . .  several [comments suggested] that if the abortion workers really had a change of heart, they ought to quit on the spot and take a job at McDonald's to show the strength of their convictions. And a few even condemned these men and women outright, calling them murderers -- saying that, far from deserving help, they deserve to rot in hell.

Let's be very clear here. Yes, Jesus loves a leap of faith. Jesus loves martyrs. Jesus calls us to take up our cross, abandon our former lives and follow him.  But he also requires those of us who are already following him to make the journey easier for each other. We're supposed to take up our own crosses willingly, but try to make each other's crosses lighter.  

This is what St. Nicholas was doing when, according to legend, he crept through the streets at night, tossing bags of gold coins into the window of a poor famiy contemplating selling their daughters into prostitution. Or maybe you can imagine the original Santa Claus harumphing, "If they really thought prostitution was so wrong, they'd rather starve than get involved in that industry!" Nope. Bags of money. It's called "being the body of Christ" -- a body that has arms and hands that do the work.

If only pro-lifers considered how far some of them, including some of the most ardent and committed, drive those who have been involved in abortion, including the most thoroughly repentant, away. They make it seem as if self-justification, rather than demonstrating the love of Christ to (other) sinners, were the goal of their pro-life work. Remember, people, only God can read hearts.

8 comments:

Sally Thomas said...

That makes me happy -- and depressed and angry. I really can't get my head around these responses. That's like criticizing the Coming Home Network for making it easy for a Protestant clergyman to become Catholic. Shouldn't he demonstrate the strength of his convictions by losing his house? I mean, if he really had a change of heart, shouldn't he PROVE he's not going to go on being a crypto-Baptist? By starving? His entire family? Because Jesus says that once you've been wrong about something, nobody will ever, ever, ever love you again?

By these standards, we really ought to go around in flagellants' parades -- I mean, if we're *truly* sorry we left the bitchy blog comment . . .

Pentimento said...

Your bitchy blog comment is safe with bitchy me.

And yes. To everything you wrote.

If these naysayers knew anything about their faith, they'd know that here is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over a hundred righteous men, and also that, as I'm not sure who said, the Catholic Church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints. And they also might have the humility to admit that, if they had to take on the lives, backgrounds, and circumstances of those they condemn, they might not have done any differently.

e-ny said...

I deleted an email draft (rejoice!) trying to make the same point with more personal anecdotes, but I guess it's possible that some of those who are not trolling by saying such things also have things in their backgrounds that make this kind of attitude toward other sinners *their* particular temptation. (Telling myself I can make a point in less than 1,000 words and it might only have been less clear with all the illustrative anecdotes and their nuances...)

Anonymous said...

At the heart of such attitudes is the deep seated belief that we are not on the same level as an abortionist. We are better than that. I understand that feeling. It was an argument that crossed my mind every single time that I would pray the Lord's Prayer and ask God to hold me to the same standard of forgiveness that I doled out to the child molester. I would get really pissed off, initially, like "how is THAT fair." I think overtime, though, the Lord opened my eyes to see the perp through his eyes AND to myself as God sees me. We are all in need of Grace and God help us if we do not learn to have Mercy on others. We only call down judgment upon ourselves when we say "no" to Love and Mercy.

Pentimento said...

As someone said, grace is getting what you don't deserve; mercy is not getting what you do deserve.

Sally Thomas said...

e-ny, that's a very fair insight. I do think it's possible to grow up with a very stunted concept of grace and forgiveness: a lot of families operate on a model wherein the universe has none, and even when the head (and even the heart) learns of the existence of mercy, all the old instincts keep kicking in.

That's true of all of us and any kind of sin, of course, especially deep-seated tendencies which spring from our experiences in our own families, but certainly for many people (myself not necessarily excluded) this is a particular manifestation. And the beauty of the internet is that it provides a way for what might otherwise have been privately uncharitable thoughts to become public proclamations.

e-ny said...

"And the beauty of the internet is that it provides a way for what might otherwise have been privately uncharitable thoughts to become public proclamations."

I'm afraid this is me veering off on a tangent again, but this reminds me of how I've always cringed to read press reports of the families of murder victims (especially abducted children) express the desire for the killers to rot in Hell and so forth. Can anyone not understand that as an emotional reaction? A priest I really respected once addressed in a homily how we can take comfort in knowing there IS justice with God, that no one is going to "get away with" anything, but of course we are not to hope that means others are eternally damned. But I don't think immortalizing those quotes from victims' families (mostly for the sake of selling papers/ratings/getting ad impressions on a news website) helps anyone. Probably silly imagining the press would look to a Christian standard in what they choose to report and highlight, though. At least we can still try to hold fellow Catholics in the blog world to that, though...

Anonymous said...

Amen. I find that many people who call themselves Christians harbor the conceit that they themselves are incapable of committing the sins they find most despicable. How wrong! There are plenty of sins I have not committed, but that is grace. In different circumstances, I might have committed almost any sin ever confessed. TQ