Like Jean Jacques Rousseau, I have five sons. Rousseau is famous as the philosopher of the Social Contract, but he also had grand ideas on proper childrearing, played a huge role in the development of educational theories in France and he wrote volumes on childhood education. He had 5 sons and later in life he said:
“At one time I had no sons and five theories of child rearing, now I have five sons and no theories of child rearing.”
Perhaps apocryphal, but for me those are words of a man who has “been there” like me.
What’s this got to do with abortion? Abortion to me is an abstract. I don’t know a single person who has ever had an abortion. All persons I have ever known who were pregnant either miscarried or had babies to show for it. It is incomprehensible for me to imagine the thought process involved in making such a decision. Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life but that’s true.
Now, while I was busy raising five sons and completely out of fresh ideas to convince a computer savvy teenager that a washing machine is not as complicated as an Ethernet connection, the clergy sex abuse scandal blew up. It completely blindsided me in several devastating ways. After much anguish and soul searching, I reached a decision to divert my church donations away from my parish. I reduced my annual donations by two thirds. One third was sent to SNAP as a form of partial contrition. I looked around for a worthy charity and found a letter from the local Project Rachel describing its work in assisting women after abortion and thanking the parish for its generous annual donation. Of $300.
$300. Our parish raises over $200,000 for the Diocese Annual Appeal, average weekly collections are about $30,000. Somehow or another that $300 figure just stunned me. That’s all we can do? All this blather about pro-life is just that? All words and no action? Can that really be? I don’t know. But I re-examined my own conscience and diverted the last third of my parish donations to the local house. My donation is bigger than the parish’s but still a drop in the bucket. If you have a charity that you want to support, and you want to put your money where your is, consider donating to an organization like Project Rachel or any organization that supports unwed mothers.
Comments