Rowing in Sin, Wading in Life

I distinctly recall my desperation to be loved despite my Catholicism. About eight years ago, I had only recently converted, but I became a nominal Catholic at an unprecedented pace. Worse than a cafeteria Catholic, I didn't pick and choose beliefs—I fasted entirely from the canonical cafeteria and the liturgical lunch room. Ignoring the fruits of the faith, I instead feasted on leftovers.

I remember the particular pride I felt when friends told me, "I didn't even know you were a Catholic." At the time, I felt that my covert Catholicism was a form of subtle evangelization: If my non-religious friends saw that Catholics could blend in, perhaps they would soften their sense about Catholicism. They would see that there were "good Catholics" after all, and perhaps this would bring them closer to the faith.

Of course, their view of a good Catholic was someone who disregarded the teachings of the Church, so instead of bringing my friends closer to Catholicism, I walked further away. I wasn't an undercover Catholic; I wasn't Catholic at all.

During that time, I never went to confession, nor did I attend mass. I abstained from holy days in favor of my own personal feast days dedicated to gluttony, envy, and pride. I praised technology as the savior from suffering. I entered relationships with the mistaken thought that lust could induce love. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital under the weight of anxiety spurred on by sinfulness.

My bifurcated soul was spent. I could no longer call myself a Catholic and live as if I weren't one—but I also didn't want to stop calling myself a Catholic. So, the only choice was to try to become what I had already professed to be.

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A few months back, in an essay about my changed understanding of masculinity, I wrote this:

Since Christianity is not simply an ad hoc set of beliefs but instead an entirely different way of living, masculinity is reshaped along with everything else in the adoption of a Christ-centered life.

This truth underscores nearly every disagreement and misunderstanding between the secular and Catholic worlds. Secular people believe that Catholicism is just another belief or preference that someone holds: I like Trader Joe's, I enjoy science fiction, I think American zoning laws are ludicrous, I'm skeptical about Quentin Tarantino's films, and I'm a Catholic.

But this view is completely wrong. Rather, Catholicism is a set of foundational beliefs, a lens through which one's entire view of the world is refracted.

Thus, most discussions about controversial topics between Catholics and the non-religious are doomed from the start because neither side shares an understanding of reality.

And that brings us to Roe v. Wade.

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When the Supreme Court's draft opinion leaked last week, I celebrated. As a Catholic, I have prayed for years that the unborn—the most vulnerable among us—would be spared from relentless and celebrated abortion. I had never imagined a reversal of course in my lifetime, and the joy I felt at renewed hope for the hopeless was overwhelming.

Yet the streets were quickly filled with red-cloaked, white-bonneted handmaidens decrying misogyny and forced birth. Supporters of abortion felt a violation of their rights, and they reacted with outrage.

If I take a moment to look through their lens, I understand their anger.

They do not share my understanding of sex, of gender, of personhood, of souls, of justice, of family, of responsibility, of sin, of salvation, of human nature, of God.

For that reason, they view abortion primarily as a right—and thus its eradication primarily as an infringement of freedom.

Of course, I do think they are mistaken. But to unravel the mistake, Catholics cannot have the discussion in the sphere of secularism, where our argument is incoherent. Supporters of abortion do not yet share the lens through which Christians view the world—how could they? We cannot fault them for this; nor should we acquiesce.

We will hear arguments of the following sort: This is all about controlling women, or a fetus is a clump of cells, or no one should be forced to give birth if they don't want to, or a child would be better off aborted than born unwanted by its parents.

You can't reply to any of these arguments with a clever Twitter retort, because underneath of each of them is a set of assumptions that forms a chasm both intellectually deep and spiritually wide. What is marriage? What is sex for? What is a person? What is the highest good? What is the role of society? What are laws for? What is the nature of suffering? What is the value of a life?

Anyone who supports abortion has radically different answers to these questions—and many others—than Catholics who oppose abortion, and our only viable response is compassionate catechesis.

Certainly we cannot endorse supporters of abortion, but neither can we cast them off, or who else will show them the truth? They believe that we are foolish and irredeemable in our folly; we must be more like Christ and pray that they travel beyond the dim shadow of misunderstanding into the full light of the truth.

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