Jack, who’s education and resume are way more impressive than mine, asked why I was interested in religion.
“Because I root for the underdog,” I said, “and religion is one way the strong bully the weak.”
The story Jack wanted to tell was his own:
“I was raised Catholic, went to parochial schools and a Jesuit college. I always enjoyed my time in church and I went to mass two or three times a week.
My wife was also Catholic, although she wasn’t quite so devout.
My career was going along fine and we had three great children.
My first kid, Julie, was beautiful, smart, cheerful, and athletically gifted. She was offered an athletic scholarship to a prestigious university. She even had a boyfriend we approved of.
She started the summer between high school and college beaming like the sun. Life was incredibly good.
Then, in July, we got the news, Julie was pregnant.
I didn’t really think, I just acted. It was like I was on auto-pilot. I did a little research and found a provider and Julie had her abortion by August.
Only later did I realize that what I had done completely contradicted my allegiance to the Church.”
This was a major event in Jack’s life. When confronted with a real life threat, he did the right thing and abandoned the Church in favor of his daughter’s welfare.
Jack didn’t express guilt about the abortion, or remorse about his mistaken devotion to Catholicism. He was just impressed at the difference between being a sheep in a fold versus being a grown up human being.
This relates to the most amazing post I’ve come across since google-alerting on “Jesuits,” etc.
Diana Mertz Hsieh at Noodlefood discusses a passage in the book, The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman, which looks at the vow of obedience.
Apparantly, there is some Catholic tradition, that if one vows obedience to a religious superior, and then dutifully obeys that superior, one cannot sin. All responsibility, in the eyes of God, for the actions of the obedient is transferred to the superior.
This was seen as a way of assuring one’s blamelessness at the last judgement, and, therefore, automatic entry into heaven.
The book quotes Varieties of Religious Experience by William James:
One of the great consolations of the monastic life," says a Jesuit authority, "is the assurance we have that in obeying we can commit no fault. The Superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this thing or that, but you are certain that you commit no fault so long as you obey…
...God wipes it out of your account, and charges it to the Superior. So that Saint Jerome well exclaimed, in celebrating the advantages of obedience, 'Oh, sovereign liberty! Oh, holy and blessed security by which one become almost impeccable!'
A Church that condones, let alone promotes such abdication of conscience is also laughable.
2 comments:
Was it her choice or daddy's choice? You left that part out of the story and it's fairly crucial, though I'm hoping it was the former.
Jack didn't mention whose idea it was. I assume if the daughter wanted to have the baby, Jack would have included that in the story.
Jack felt fully complicit in the abortion. And he's fine with it all now.
Nor did he mention any partiular shame for having supported for most of his life an organization that is virulently anti-gay and anti-woman.
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