I think some writers online may write too much.

Art: Agnes Boulloche - L'Education

Confusion ensues.

I just read the most astonishing post on why the Church teaches against IVF technologies, or 'test tube' babies.

I don't know, but Church documents are offered in the vernacular these days and are widely available to lay people.  Church teaching couldn't be more clear - I should think.  Of course it is correct for a priest to teach on Catholic teaching and to instruct those who may not understand, or rather, accept Catholic teaching as it is presented.  I'm not sure some of the things I read today make a lot of sense to anyone interested in the subject, and for those who may have been conceived in a petri dish, it might just add to whatever natural uncertainty concerning their existence they may already have.

I may be wrong, but some of the things Fr. L. wrote in the essay seem a bit far-fetched.

What’s wrong with artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood? That the child is deprived of a mother’s love at the most basic level of his existence.

Let’s take it a step further and consider the church’s teaching that conception is best realized within the “marital embrace.” I believe not only are the months of gestation a time for emotional, mental and spiritual influence of the parents to the child, but that the moment of conception is important. 

Here’s why. I once counseled a fifteen year old kid I’ll call Jimmy who suddenly went haywire. He had been a nice, sweet, smart boy–very obedient and loving. Then at fifteen he went Gothic. Dressed in black, became super rebellious and inexplicably began to steal cars. We asked Jimmy why he stole cars. He didn’t know. We said he would go to jail if he kept stealing cars. He knew that. He kept stealing cars as if there was some dark rebellious compulsion to his behavior. So we began to probe a bit further into his background. 

Jimmy didn’t know this, but his mother told me that he was adopted and that he was conceived in the back seat of a car as an act of rebellion when his mother was fifteen years old. 

It was as if fifteen year old rebellion and cars was written into Jimmy’s personality in a weird and disturbing way. Of course there was nothing genetic about it. There was nothing that could be proven scientifically. 

However, we can extrapolate a theory from this experience.

The moment the egg and sperm meet is the beginning of a person’s life. It is a foundational moment. Just as the foundation of the person’s physical body begins, so at that moment (because the person is a body, mind, spirit unity) we must affirm that the foundation of the person’s mind, spirit and emotions are also established. If that moment of meeting was between two physically healthy people we hope that the physical aspect of the child is healthy. We would continue to hope that the emotional, spiritual and mental circumstances of the moment of conception were also healthy.

So, for example, if a child is conceived in a moment of drunken rage the foundation of his or her personality might be tainted with addiction and rage. If the child is conceived in a moment or irresponsible lust he or she may have irresponsible lust as a foundation element of their personality. If the child is conceived in rape and terror he or she may have rape, violence and terror at the root of their personality. Likewise, if the child is conceived in a moment of total, self giving, joy and ecstasy within the supernatural blessings of a sacramental marriage he or she will have joy, confidence, faith and love at the root of his or her personality.

When the church teaches that a child has the right to be conceived in “the marital embrace” therefore she is affirming much more than a sentimental attachment to marriage. Instead it is affirming a deep wisdom about the very best origin of the human person.  Read the full essay here.

Scared straight.

No offense, but the essay reminds me of some of the stuff people say about homosexuality and homosexual acts, as if Catholic moral teaching is indiscernible, or isn't enough, very often scary health stories are told, stats offered for early death rates, accelerated suicide rates and so on, are repeated as a deterrent - to scare people straight - or just encourage chastity. Those folks who reject Catholic teaching on sexual ethics and marriage pretty much ignore such warnings anyway.  Catholic teaching is sufficient in itself.

I know young people who were conceived outside the womb.  They are completely normal, healthy individuals, now adults, married with children and faithful Catholics.  They accept Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual ethics.  [Some have wondered however, if in the eyes of the Church, they "have been steeped in sin since birth" - like the Gospel story of the man born blind.] For every negative anecdotal situation, usually a positive story can be offered to refute it. 

Fr. L. is a good man, a good priest, sometimes I just disagree with him.  He writes a lot.  He also no longer has an open combox, and when people don't leave that opportunity for readers open, I'll often post my comments on my blog.  (Often, when they do leave their combox open, and I comment, they don't publish it anyway.  That's why I have my own blog.)

The stories we could tell instead.

St. John of the Cross mentions something about the extreme desires some have for children.  It might be good for Catholic teachers to use the quote to remind people who wish to go to extremes to have children by artificial means, and or same-sex adoption, that the raising of children involves so much more than fulfilling material needs, doting affection, and great education.  It's about salvation.

"It is also vain to desire children, as some do in upsetting the whole world with their longing for them. For they do not know whether their children will be good and serve God, or whether the expected happiness will instead be sorrow, or the rest and comfort, trial and grief, or the honor, dishonor. And because of the children they might, as many do, offend God more. Christ says of these people, that they circle the earth and the sea in order to enrich their children, and they make them children of perdition twofold more than they themselves are. [Mt. 23:15] - Ascent, Bk. III, Ch. 17:4

I have a couple friends who were high school sweethearts, they married and never had children - no one ever asked why, assumptions were made that they were unable to.  They have been devout Catholics all their married life.  Since they had no children, they were able to care for a younger sister with Downs Syndrome until she died last week in her late 50's.  I think God gave them special graces and great consolation, and their marital love lacked nothing.  God's grace was sufficient for them.


I think I post too much too.

Now what went wrong when this little girl was conceived?