Fortnight of Fun

I'm back from a much needed respite and visit with my mom.  I had some real BBQ (not the vinegar soaked crap they try to pass off here), wonderful conversations, a baseball game, and lots of wine.  My heart is full.  It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a Cradle Catholic.  I spent 13 years in Catholic school, including University.  I was a catechist for kids preparing for confirmation.  I served on the liturgical committee at my church and I've been a cantor for the better part of 25 years (Jeezle Pete I'm old).  My faith has always been a central part of my life, but it's hard to be a Catholic and a scientist.  Let's face it, Catholics have a pretty shitty track record when it comes to recognizing science as... well... a thing.

When we were faced with fertility treatments, I had a hard time reconciling religion and faith.  I read the Church's doctrine on treatment and I was astounded, horrified even, by the misconceptions and inaccuracies that brought the leaders of my church to condemn the choices I was making to treat a medical condition.  You can read my original posts on the subject here, here, and here.  Since then, I have learned to recognize that the laws of the Catholic church were written by men, not God, that humans are fallible, and we have the free will to make our own choices and decisions.  I was feeling pretty good with that.  I haven't been going to mass much, but mostly it's been because of the babies that are all over the place.  I go to a Franciscan parish, so we're a bit more liberal than your typical diocesan church.

Fast forward to this past Sunday when I was with my mom.  She wanted me to go to her new church with her.  It was just built near her house and she was talking about how beautiful it was.  Now, I went to this church when mass was in a warehouse while the new building was being built and I wasn't thrilled with it.  It's really conservative.  Many women wear chapel veils there and it was the first time I'd EVER seen a woman wearing one in the US.  I figured it wouldn't kill me.  I did make it out alive, but that's about all I can say about it!

When we walked in, the whole congregation was kneeling and chanting.  It was a prayer I had never heard before.  I asked my mom what it was and she said it was a pro-life prayer, from when she was a little girl.  I looked at the really young people who knew and were reciting this and thought, "Oh Lord, here we go."  We saddled into our pew and were joined shortly by the youngest sibling of a girl I went to grade school with.  She's one of 9.  My former classmate is already up to 5 of her own.  So now I'm trapped in a pew between St. Mom and captain fertility, in the most conservative Catholic church I've ever set foot in, during the "Fortnight for Religious Freedom" crap (sorry - it's crap.  Maybe our Bishops forgot what real religious persecution is), while I'm on BCPs before my second IVF cycle.  See where this is going?

The homily was about the insurance mandate, but this dude went even further.  In the same breath as talking about how the government's mandate on paying for birth control violated the Church's religious rights, he went on to describe how the Church's doctrine should be governing.  Like, really governing.  He actually said something alluding to things being all fine and dandy when the Catholic church was in political power back in the day.  Ummm, k.  Then he called on his parishioners to vote for politicians who would oppose gay marriage (he went into detail on that one), cloning, and stem cell research.  He said that, "stem cell research hasn't produced any cures" so we should be abandoning it anyway.  I wanted to jump up and yell, "Treatments, asswipe!  Loads of treatments!  You can't wipe a whole research platform off the map like that."  He did not mention IVF directly, but stem cell research and cloning are two of the reasons that the church's doctrine gives for condemning IVF.  Swear.  Cloning.  I was waiting for him to mention ART specifically, but his "protecting life from the moment of conception until death" diatribe said it all.  So there I sat, feeling like a leper in the one place that I should feel the most loved and supported. 

I managed to keep the tears to a manageable 2 streamers.

One of my mom's biggest fears in all of this is that I will turn my back on my faith.  Being the avoider she is, when we got in the car she kept talking about the music and the stained glass.  I just said, "Can we go to your old church when I come to visit please?"  She gave a cheery, "Okay.  The homily was a bit much."  I answered, "A bit?"  She said, "Okay, a lot.  Let's go get some lunch."

I'm still so lost when it comes to religion and faith.  Just when I think I've got it figured out, I plop my butt in a pew and it all goes out the window.  A beautiful stained glass window at that.