I am putting together a collection of stale news items on a common theme, which I had bookmarked some time ago to post about. Sex is, more often than not, interesting, so I doubt any reader will yawn over this.
A devout Roman Catholic who had not known she was pregnant killed her son within moments of giving birth alone.
Elizabeth Tevenan then bled to death after she was found by her mother in the bathroom of their home, an inquest heard yesterday.
Click here for this tragic story from the June 17/09 Daily Mail, which begins with the above paragraphs. Reading the accompanying comments may be a rather useful investment of time.
This tale of a “devout Catholic” taking a big (fatal and murderous) fall reminded me of a draft post I had saved about the public stumbles of another devout Catholic (though not strictly so), Mel Gibson. The girlfried got pregnant, Mr. OctoMel had been tossed aside by his wife for a couple of years and perhaps could not cope with loneliness, middle age confusion and greedy male sexual desire. So he outed himself and opted to keep baby alive.
For sure, Gibson is a more mature and financially independent person than the girl above who killed her baby, but still a crashing fall for him, given his publicly professed strong faith and high morals. He had struggled long and hard with the demons of alcoholism; perhaps from living out his father’s creeds without ever breaking free to find God on his own .
The last of his public humiliations that I kept up with was this story about a rant at members of his personal ‘Catholic’ church. More than enough to have enemies of religion and of social conservatives go into spasms of joy, that one more high profile example has, in their eyes, exposed religious truth and conservative values as impossible to live by ideals. Hypocrisy, thy name is Mel Gibson, read an MSNBC headline.
Maybe it was a little cutie on the way that made the Rev. Catholic celebrity priest Alberto Cutie, take some very public steps to ensure his affair with a woman was outed on a Miami beach. Or maybe it was those ugly rumours. Time may tell the reason for Fr. Cutie leaving the Catholic Church, becoming an Episcopalian priest and marrying – before a judge at that, in record time. Suddenly, again, all the devout Catholic beliefs and practices vapourized into thin air.
In any event, prayers for the fallen (technically still) priest. Where our celibate Catholic priesthood is concerned, I feel much understanding is in order for those who have tried and failed versus those who have never tried or have not experienced the unique stresses of this heroic quest.
The Vatican took back Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo after his Rev. Moon mass marriage, so there may be a Rev. Cutie phase II in the Catholic picture somewhere in the future. However, I do not know the canon-law-hair- splitting-wiggle room-face saving theological loopholes of such matters, so I won’t comment further.
More than Mel Gibson’s shenanigans, the woman who committed infanticide and the near equivalent of suicide, reminded of this other ’stale news’ item I had also bookmarked to post about. While “research studies” need to be taken with a grain of salt, this one from a June 1/09 story on Lifenews.com deserves digesting:
A new study finds that women students at private, religious schools are not less likely than their counterparts at public schools to have an abortion. In fact, sociologist Amy Adamczyk published an article in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior saying they are more likely.
“This research suggests that young, unmarried women are confronted with a number of social, financial and health-related factors that can make it difficult for them to act according to religious values when deciding whether to keep or abort a pregnancy,” she said.
“Religious school attendance is not necessarily indicative of conservative religious beliefs because students attend these schools for a variety of reasons,” Adamczyk said. “These schools tend to generate high levels of commitment and strong social ties among their students and families, so abortion rates could be higher due to the potential for increased feelings of shame related to an extramarital birth.”
Despite Adamczyk’s finding that rates of reported abortions were higher for young women educated at private religious schools, the type of religious school was not a factor: Catholic schools had similar rates as other religious schools.
Results revealed no significant link between a young woman’s reported decision to have an abortion and her personal religiosity, as defined by her religious involvement, frequency of prayer and perception of religion’s importance.
This is ammunition made in heaven for the liberal minded but does it totally demolish traditional Catholic teaching on moral values? Certainly, they call for the more devoutly religious and socially conservative minded to first look at the beam in their eyes and work harder to practice what we preach.
They also point to the work our faith community still needs to do to find a common and comfortable medium to talk about sex; to accept that people will always have sex “outside the guidelines;” and to come to a consensus about how individual, family and community deal with the announcement of say, a teen pregnancy or a child “coming out.” So heads don’t have to be buried in the sand. Or doctrine having to shift overnight to validate what was sin yesterday, because some prominent person in the camp fails, or a subculture of contrary behaviours has taken root and we’re looking to save face.
However, if we show no compassion for our fallen and leave them bleeding alone on the battlefield, or are too perfectionists to accept that the darnel must grow alongside the good weed until harvest time, then these public relations fiascoes will always leave an atmosphere of defeat hanging over the camp on the “right” side.
Jesus generally showed compassion for sinners, but really thundered against hypocrites. Maybe the key to reversing the secular advance is to spend more time dissecting what people of faith in the socially conservative camp are doing wrong rather than what secularists are doing successfully.
