When the Pope hits the Headlines

So it happened again between yesterday and today. The Pope made the headlines, and that means...a lot of people got the story wrong (or at least mixed up). Here's the official statement.

Many reliable sources clarified just what yesterday's announcement concerning the Jubilee of Mercy, the Sacrament of Penance (confession) and the sin of abortion:

• Sister Marianne Lorraine
• Father Thomas Rosica
• Canon Lawyer, Ed Peters  (Having--like Pope Francis!--gotten a good bit of my training before the current Code of Canon Law went into effect, I got a lot out of this post) 

Here in Boston, the Globe gave full-page coverage to the story, but bewilderingly chose to quote a Planned Parenthood representative (really?! Now?!) in two of the three articles. As much as we are told by the dominant culture that we must always respect other people's feelings, even to the point of using opposite-sex pronouns when referring to a person who doesn't "feel" like their biological sex, there is one feeling that is verboten, forbidden, the never-to-be-named Voldemort of feelings:

While calling the pontiff’s announcement “a step in the right direction,” Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said abortion is not something a woman should be ashamed of or have to seek forgiveness for. (The Boston Globe)

This denying of women their right to their own sacred feelings  makes the Pope's invitation to confession all the more pastoral. He didn't deny women's feelings, he affirmed them, and refers to his own personal encounters with women as his reason for making a dramatic (if, strictly speaking, unnecessary) overture:

[There are women who] believe that they have no other option.... I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal. I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision. 

If large numbers of women (and men) did not feel regret or remorse over abortion, groups like Silent No More and ministries like Project Rachel and Rachel's Vineyard would not have survived or spread the way they have. No, Pope Francis recognizes a pain that women are not allowed to express publicly. By making this pastoral announcement, effectively advertising a forgiveness that has long been available (most, if not all, US bishops gave priests full authorization to absolve the sin of abortion), Pope Francis is letting women know that they don't have to deny their own experience. But they don't have to keep reliving it in secret, either.

Come to think about it, isn't that a helpful invitation for all of us, no matter what our secret, buried-down-deep, unacknowledged area of sinfulness is?

Holy Hour of Reparation for Sins against Life (Updated link)

Today across the country, thousands are gathering to protest the horrors that have been revealed over this summer; crimes (even if they are technically "legal") against the human person and the human body, which has been reduced to a source of spare parts for experimentation even without the consent (never fully "informed") of the mother.

I am unable to attend the local protest. (In fact, as soon as I post this I will be taking another migraine pill and turning the lights out.) But I figured there are many others who would be willing to join in, but for whatever reason cannot. So I have put together an outline for a Holy Hour of Reparation that can be our contribution to today's pro-life efforts. Perhaps through our quiet presence before the Lord today, we can obtain and "channel" the graces most needed by the people whose hands are so stained with blood or greed.

Please feel free to share this outline with as many people as possible. "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you," Jesus said. Let us ask the grace of interior conversion for everyone involved in the abortion industry, for our politicians and for the media who protect the status quo, and for the medical researchers who are driving the marketplace demand for fetal organs.

Holy Hour of Reparation

Facing Goliath

@StudentsforLife on Instagram

Could today's Mass readings be more appropriate on the day of the annual March for Life? I think not.

As tens upon tens of thousands (if not more; we'll never really know) descend upon Washington DC calling for the overturning of a long-established "right" (not to mention a huge moneymaker, besides), the Church's liturgy tells the old, old story of a little boy going mano a mano with a giant. The boy doesn't have much in the way of weaponry: a few rocks. He's clearly not the favorite in this confrontation. But he's there to save lives--to save the people Israel from the threat of war.

In the Gospel we have another face-off, and Jesus makes it very clear that this confrontation, too, is about saving lives, even though the laws in place would seem not to favor that. "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath... to save life rather than destroy it?" Jesus was
also not favored to win this: it was him alone against an established, entrenched, and very well-connected bloc.

@Katlynngrace on Instagram

In both cases, the "weapons" (a few rocks, a spoken command) wielded disproportionate results, because "It is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves." This is especially clear in today's Gospel, in which Jesus gave his life for the well-being of the crippled man before him. The US bishops ask all Catholics today to observe a day of prayer and penance: prayer for the defense of innocent life, and penance, something that costs us personally, in reparation for the evils legalized abortion has visited upon our country: millions of lives lost, women subjected to fear, violence and threats, fatherhood lost and manhood diminished--and how many marriages broken up, too, by secret abortions? All of these sorrows call out for the "sincere gift of self" in imitation of Jesus.

@Hey_Jude_1994 on Instagram shared
the Pope's tweet; as I post this, Pope
Francis has been retweeted 6,915
times, and favorited 5,938.

It is this attitude of Jesus that must permeate all pro-life efforts if they are to be really effective. It won't do to wield the truth like a sword (an approach that some still insist on taking, even though it can backfire fatally). Cardinal O'Malley, in his homily for the Vigil Mass last night, made it clear: "The antidote to abortion is solidarity"; "the only way we can save those babies is by saving the mothers."

Today I will be visiting a place where those mothers and babies are saved: over at Chicago's "Well of Mercy," mothers in need find a place to live, learn life skills, complete their education in a supportive environment. The director and I will be screening the movie "Gimme Shelter," and we'll be talking about that experience, and the real-life experience of the families of the Well of Mercy, on Friday when I host the "Winds of Change" radio program. (The movie opens Friday in limited release; if it is in a theater in your area, be sure to show your support!)