Speaking the Truth with Love

After my post yesterday, I began thinking about why I feel the need to discuss controversial topics such as this on my blog.  It would be much easier to just avoid standing up for my beliefs when people attack them, or easier still to ignore the "signs" that seem to point me directly to a topic.  Within this past month, I have been emailed quite a few articles about IVF and selective reduction, Phil is teaching it to his students in his morality class, and has been asked to talk to the elementary school teachers in our Diocese about it at their faculty retreat day.  The topic keeps coming up over and over, and I felt compelled to write about it.  In doing so, I exposed myself to people who don't agree and even lost a follower on my blog yesterday.  Coincidence?  Probably not.

About a year ago, I reviewed the book Motherless, and got this comment:

It really bothers me that you said this book "had to do with creating life outside the normal, morally acceptable means."

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to conceive on their own, without reproductive assistance. Does that mean that they are any less entitled to having or wanting a family?

I guess I am neither normal nor morally acceptable in the eyes of some, which I feel is very, very sad.

I replied with this:

I agree that not everyone is lucky enough to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. But I also don't think that having children is a right...I think they are a gift. I would be devastated if I could not have children, and would be completely open to looking into anything I could do within the moral boundaries of my Catholic faith to help me conceive a baby. I would also pursue adoption. What I wouldn't do is try to create life apart from God's design. These are just my personal beliefs, and I am so sorry that they made you feel sad. I will pray for you in your struggles with infertility and hope that one day you can know the joy of becoming a mother :)

 I also left a comment on her blog asking her to email me if she wanted to talk further.  Instead she UN-followed my blog.  Her comment still makes me feel such sorrow.  I am sorry that I made her sad, and I am sorry that she can't see the harm in using IVF, and I am sorry that I couldn't convince her otherwise. 

I am so blessed to have a wonderful and faith filled family, a family-in-law, real-life friends, bloggy friends, and coworkers who almost all share my Catholic beliefs.  So it is not very difficult or courageous to speak my mind on moral topics on my little platform here.  It's like preaching to the choir.  If I offend someone because of my beliefs, then I don't really care, but if I offend someone because of the way I say something, or the way I act, then I am sorry.  

I stand firmly behind my morals and values and my opinions presented on those, but I don't want to push people away with them.  I want to attract people with them.  People followed Christ because He spoke the truth in a loving way.  He didn't back peddle on his teachings in order to gain more followers, nor did He preach his message in a vile or hate filled way.  Christ was not here to be popular or worry about who liked him.  Can you imagine him counting his friends on Facebook, or followers on his blog?  Puh-lease.  We need to be strong yet compassionate, and it's a work in progress for me. 

I don't know how to deal with the children who were conceived through IVF.  I don't know how to talk to twins who were conceived through IVF but should have been triplets if their parents hadn't chosen to selectively reduce the pregnancy.  If  they know this, and feel, as their parents do, that killing the triplet was the "right" thing to do so that they could be born healthy, how do you try to teach them in a loving manner that what their parents did was wrong?  Luckily I don't need to be the one to directly talk to them, but the topic will come up in their theology or morality or biology classes, and I would hate to be in that teacher's shoes.  I hope the students will be able to feel loved while hearing the truth, but I can foresee that they will get defensive and sad and upset.  It's human nature, and nobody wants to hear that they (or their parents) have committed a terrible wrongdoing.

A few years ago, my cousin who is Catholic got married to a non-practicing Jewish man in an outdoor ceremony with a Justice of the Peace.  She invited us all to her wedding, but because she is Catholic and wasn't having a Catholic wedding (no Catholic priest presiding), we couldn't in our conscience attend.  By attending, we would be saying that we approve of the marriage, which would be completely against the teachings our the Catholic Church.  Luckily, I was able to use the valid excuse that we couldn't attend because we had company visiting that weekend.  It was the truth but it was the cowardly way out.  My mom chose to go the brave route and sat down and wrote a loving letter to her neice explaining why she couldn't attend their wedding, and urging her to do what it takes to get married in the eyes of the Catholic church.  And you know what happened?  Everyone got upset at my mother.  Sometimes speaking the truth falls on deaf ears, and causes more distress.

But sometimes, speaking the truth can actually change a person's life and save their soul.  Last night I went to my Women of Grace meeting and one of the women in the group is becoming a Catholic this Easter. Her husband is Catholic but they were married outside the church, so three days after Easter, they will be married in the Catholic church.   Two weeks ago, our pastor pulled her aside and said he noticed that her husband was still receiving Communion.  She said, yes, he is Catholic.  And our pastor said that because they aren't yet married in the eyes of the church, her husband can't receive the Eucharist unless they are living as brother and sister.  He told her this in a loving and funny way (making sure she knew what "brother and sister" meant) and she talked to her husband about it after.  They decided they would spend this Lent living as brother and sister until they could be married in the Church. 

What a great example of how to steer someone towards the truth while not pushing them away from it.  So I know it can be done, through prayer and the grace of God.  And that, my friends, gives me hope.