Category: rant

Surrogacy and Women: A Rant

“Wouldn’t spending the money and going through the extra effort prove they loved the child more?”

“Isn’t is just nice to do for someone?”

In a move that was perhaps questionable from the outset, I decided to open the floor to questions for the entirety of a class period.  After a couple weeks of my classes being off-sync, I wanted to finally draw them together and the rampant questions of one class had provided the perfect opening.  However, that class asked questions that flowed naturally from one to the next and with only thirteen in the class, there was a feeling of closeness and simplicity.  Trying to re-create that atmosphere for a class of twenty-nine was a different story.  I offered to them the chance to simply ask questions that they had about the Church or the faith.  The first class had found questions that flowed from Our Lady to salvation to exorcisms.  The next class found a different route and were spurred on by different questions.  They followed the line of exorcisms with a leap to evolution and surrogacy.  The result was a class that ended with a bit more intensity and moral depth.  Time ran out and they left unsatisfied with some of my answers.

I have never really discussed surrogacy with a class before but I had recently talked about such things with a friend of mine.  One girl originally asked the question and she seemed alright with my answer.  Others were not.

“Wouldn’t spending the money and going through the extra effort prove they loved the child more?”

I tried to explain that spending money doesn’t mean more love.  (Only later did I think of prostitution as a fitting example.)  Can the couple love this child?  Of course.  I’m not denying that a couple can love a child they “paid” for, but I don’t think it means they love him/her more.  A great example came to mind (thanks, Holy Spirit) that the true statement of love would not be that I can afford to create a life in a laboratory but rather that I can let go of my desire to have a biological child and rather adopt.  (They argued that adoption was spending money, too.  A different matter, I believe.)  The love is found not in the willingness to spend a large sum of money so that their desires can be fulfilled but rather that they can accept the disappointment and then love a child that isn’t theirs biologically but is accepted totally into their loving family.  That seems to indicate a great love.  
“Isn’t it just nice to do for someone?”
The heartache of infertility is not one that I have experienced nor one that I hope to experience.  However, lending my womb to a friend doesn’t seem to fall under that category of “nice.”  This world tends to approach situations with an “how can I get what I want?” attitude.  The desire isn’t simply, “I want a child.”  That would be easily remedied.  The desire is, “I want a child that is biologically mine even if I cannot carry that life in my womb.”  Perhaps, even, the “want” is changed to “deserve” or “have a right” to a child.  
It isn’t “nice” to let yourself be a host for a child.  You can love that child, you can love that couple, but you are not permitted to let your womb be used in a paid/unpaid transaction.  The worth of woman is more than just a womb.  I don’t quite understand what people mean when they say the Church suppresses women or has a negative view of women.  They have never read Chesterton.  Chesterton will throw men under the bus and elevate the dignity of women in one fell swoop.  They also have never looked very closely at theology.  The Church says no only so that she may say a greater Yes. 
Woman, you may not engage in sex outside of marriage because you deserve the lasting love and devotion of a man who will offer his very life for you, not just a few moments right now.  

Woman, you may not have an abortion because that little baby in your womb needs you and you will only inflict a great wound on yourself.  You deserve better.  

Woman, you may not use contraception because you are a precious gift in your entirety and when you offer yourself to your husband, you must offer your whole self holding nothing back, masking nothing of your beauty.  Your ability to create life is not something to be disabled but something to be exalted.

Woman, you may not be a surrogate mother because you are far more than a host for the baby of your friends or strangers.  You are not an object to be used but rather you are a person to be loved.  It is beautiful for the gift of life to grow within your womb but it should be planted there by God and your husband, not by the doctor in the laboratory.  You are more than what they would lead you to believe.
How any of this becomes heard as “Women are stepped on by the Church” is beyond me.
This “niceness” is not something that should be encouraged because it is the same “niceness” that will cause me to put you out of your misery if I think your quality of life is not good enough.  “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” is a cliche because there is truth to it.  It is not enough to just intend to do good things, you must actually do them.  And this good must go beyond my personal understanding of good.  (Cue Hitler and his quest for what he deemed good.)
I was surprised with the direction the class took the Q&A session and how we wandered into the realm of sexual morality.  Again I am convinced that the way to win the next generation is to have holy couples that teach their children the faith in their home and live it out daily.  My rant is finished but I cannot help but wonder what the future holds for this world.  The youth are such an important part of the future and their hearts can be in a world-imposed ignorance.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

They just report the facts…as they want you to know them

Yes, reader, these articles are fairly old.  The reason I only recently stumbled across them is because I do not turn to CNN for my news coverage.  Following are a few glimpses why.  

You could argue that I am being intentionally critical.  That would be true.  I am intentionally criticizing a news group for presenting the news in a biased way.  They probably pride themselves on their responsible journalism, but I find nearly each word tainted with the desire to misinform the public.  News groups, be they of radio, paper, or TV, have a large task: to bring the news to the people.  Yet how they do so will greatly influence how people act.  

Need an example?  President Obama got re-elected.  If you own the news, you can, in a way, own the people.  

This is why good Christian people are needed in the media circles.  Here is a shout out to all of my friends (and all the strangers) who are committed to accurately presenting the truth.  You are in the streets in a big way.

Vatican seeks to rebrand its relationship with science

“There have been no signals yet as to whether Pope Francis will bring about a softening of the Vatican’s stance on issues such as condom-use as means to prevent suffering and early death.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/world/pope-vatican-science/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

I attack this sentence (one among many from this article that could be lambasted) because of how they phrase it.  They wonder if Pope Francis will save people from suffering and early death.  Their solution: condoms.  By saying it in this way, they present the picture that the Church cares little for the sufferings of others.  It completely neglects the fact that the Church works tirelessly to ease the sufferings of people.  They just refuse to accept the Church’s moral stance against condoms.  
P.S. The headline?  Please.  The Church helped develop science.  Some of the best scientists belonged to the Church.  Some were even priests.  And this was long before Pope Francis.  Sometimes news groups are so…medieval about this topic.

Humble pope has complicated past

“Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but his past is tinged with controversy surrounding topics as sensitive as gay marriage and political atrocities.”

Controversy.  Whatever will we do?!  Most of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality are considered to be controversial.  It isn’t the Church’s fault that society disagrees with them.  The controversy comes from an increasingly pagan society.

“Don’t be surprised, Girard said, if the new pope shows flexibility on contraceptives, but don’t expect him to budge on the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion.”

Apparently they do not understand contraceptives and the Church’s reasons for being against them.  This is more wishful thinking.

“With a front-page counterpunch, the president said the church possessed “attitudes reminiscent of medieval times and the Inquisition.”  The bill eventually became law, and Francis left the battlefield defeated.  But some supporters hold it up as evidence of his traditionalist views.”

What would be really terrible would be to have a pope who didn’t follow the tradition of the Church.  Of course this is proof of traditional views.  He is a faithful Catholic.  Hence why he got elected pope.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/americas/argentina-pope-profile/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Catholics: 5 ways for Francis to move forward


“The issue of gay rights has proved deeply controversial within the Catholic Church, and led to accusations from activists that it remains mired in the past rather than looking toward a more inclusive future.”

Again with the controversy.  It is an interesting concept that truth ceases to be truth simply because of the passing of years.  This comment is a result of a misunderstanding of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.  Realistically, I don’t think they desire to know the truth.  They don’t like the truth anyway.

“Meanwhile, 50% of the world’s Catholics remain excluded from the highest echelons of the church because of their sex — and Filipino Rummel Pinera says it’s time the church acknowledged the importance of women in its history, and its future.”

Those are pretty deep statistics.  I also believe that it is time for the Church to stop excluding men from having babies.  It is extremely unfair.  The Church HAS acknowledge the importance of women.  Read JP2.  Read Chesterton.  Read Jesus!  Go in and look at the Mass attendance on the average week day…or weekend.  Look at the women helping with the parish life.  

“We’re living in a world that has become a global village, [and] in this global village of ours, women now can’t just be fence-sitters or nannies,” he said. “Women now know that they were created as co-equal of men.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen “co-equal” before.  Regardless of that fact, women are the equals of men…they just aren’t the same.  It is interesting that the speaker seems to insinuate that in the past, women could just stay at home or be “fence-sitters” but now they have evolved into people who are now equal.  I take offense at how he says we women used to be.

“The Roman Catholic Church should become dynamic in this age, so that it can maintain the loyalty of its flocks and win many souls for God,” he said.

Question: Will the Church win souls for God at the expense of Truth?  Can you really change what is accepted as truth and gain souls for Heaven?

“I think that the church needs to go back to a simple message which is to love each other and not care about what religion we are or what we believe in,” she said.

I’m pretty certain the Church never had that message.  Yeah, I don’t think the martyrs died so that we could walk around in a relativistic culture and say, “I don’t care what you believe…I just love you.”  Granted, saints loved people regardless of what they believed.  If you really want to “go back” you would encounter the Early Church.  They were evangelizers.  They spread the Gospel message.  They lived authentic Christian lives.  If that is the “go back” she is referencing, I believe she is correct.  But how can you “go back” to a stance the Church never held?  Simplicity.  Not to be confused with heresy.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/irpt-pope-priorities/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Thanks for reading my little rants.  Remember: you cannot trust everything you read.  Except, of course, this blog. 🙂  We need people desiring the truth in all walks of life.

I’m not the only one speaking out (to my whole 10 person audience) about the media bias.  Lila Rose is, too.
Check it out.