Last week, I was in New York receiving three awards for my work that appeared last year in Newsweek, Politico and National Geographic. Writers for Moment magazine, Sojourners, The Forward, The Washington Post, the San Francisco radio station KALW and many other organizations won as well, including Religion News Service.
In the case of RNS, much good work has been done. Which is why I’m scratching my head at two recent pieces: one a hagiography of the Rev. James Martin, a Catholic priest known for his ministry to gays, and a Catholic gynecologist who insists she keeps the faith –- yet performs abortions.
It was difficult to know exactly what the Martin piece, written by two rabbis was: A news story? An opinion piece? An analysis? A sermon? A nomination for sainthood?
The last is in jest yet only partially; Martin’s teachings are radical enough that then Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput had to release a statement in 2019 about how Martin does not speak for the Catholic Church and “to caution the faithful about some of his claims.”
The authors put Catholic teaching in the worst possible light in this paragraph:
This time of great change affords Catholic clergy the chance to adapt to new needs and serve people in new ways. Even as some may feel constrained by vows of obedience that obligate leadership to line up with papal directives, others are finding support for new areas of ministry and outreach to underserved and marginalized groups…
With this multifaceted approach, Father Martin brings his ministry outside the traditional institutional framework to directly reach the people he seeks to serve. His work provides a new model for clergy leadership within the Catholic Church, modeled on the example of Jesus.
Well actually, whenever Jesus encountered someone operating outside the bounds of traditional sexual mores, he certainly reached out to them, but he also said, “Go and sin no more.” Not sure Martin is doing that.
Also, the slap at those unfortunates “constrained by vows of obedience," etc., must feel insulting to a conservative Catholic reader who feel their spiritual leaders need to be obeying someone.
Moving on to the second piece on the Catholic abortionist, I saw not one sentence that questioned her judgment or the doctrinal contents of her faith. Starting with the headline: “A devout Catholic, she opposed abortion. Now she performs them,” is someone who performs abortions truly a ‘devout’ Catholic? What does the Catholic Catechism have to say?
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone –- and other prelates -– would disagree. You may remember earlier this year that Cordileone formerly barred House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving Communion after numerous attempts to dissuade her privately.
The abortion-related story tells of Jennifer Villavicencio, a “committed and devout Catholic” who was engaged, but on birth control ,and seeking yet another form of contraception to make sure that she and her live-in boyfriend didn’t conceive anything –- yet.
Now do you call someone a “committed and devout” Catholic who is cohabitating before marriage? I think I’d choose some different adjectives there. Anyway, she visited a family planning clinic where:
“…her religious values ran up against reality. She was taking birth control pills but felt she needed one more measure of protection: the morning-after pill. Yet once inside the clinic, she saw no difference between herself and the women who had come to the clinic to terminate their pregnancies. They all had valid reasons for being there. She saw they deserved as much respect — if not more — than the developing fetus.”
Whoa — regarding the religious values running up against reality bit, isn’t that a nasty slam against said values? Would we say that a woman wearing a hijab has religious values that don’t square with reality? Or a Sikh wearing a turban or a Jew eating kosher? That phrase sounds like a judgment to me.
It gets worse:
But it was on one of her residency rounds at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, that her change of heart was complete. That night, a pregnant woman carrying a baby with severe abnormalities needed an abortion. The baby would not have survived long after birth and the woman, with the support of her parents, didn’t want to carry it to term.
Villavicencio helped her induce labor. Then the woman asked to hold her baby, and Villavicencio wrapped the baby and gave it to the woman.
“She looked down and then looked up at me and said to me, ‘Look, how beautiful my daughter is!’ That was a lightning bolt moment for me. I was standing in front of a woman who clearly could grapple with the complexity of the decision she made. She deeply loved her daughter and had ended her pregnancy. She was able to hold those two things at the same time. She knew more about her life and the love she had than anyone else.”
This is objectionable on so many fronts. Why didn’t Villavicencio feel horror at this woman’s choice? As a “devout” Catholic, she should have. There are plenty of groups out there — Isaiah’s Promise is one — that help women carry such children to term rather than killing them early on. The answer to fetal abnormalities doesn’t have to mean aborting the child midway through the pregnancy.
Observant Catholics (let’s say those who are going to Confession) would have refused to take part in such a procedure, so at this point the story should drop the pretense that Villavicencio is devout, in any traditional sense of that word. After all, she has stopped attending Mass at this point, we learn elsewhere, and is on the board of Catholics for Choice.
We should be told that numerous Catholic bishops have condemned Catholics for Choice by totally misrepresenting church teaching. But we’re not. Again, where is the other side of this RNS report?
Also, if you watch the video atop this piece, Villavicencio is an outspoken advocate for abortion rights — not a Catholic wrestling over each abortion she reluctantly must perform. She’s an advocate for the procedure who is willing to go on national TV to push her point of view (although notice she identifies her childhood as “conservative” rather than Catholic.
The story goes on to locate another female abortionist who also identifies as Catholic but no longer attends church. Again, no alternative view is presented, nor are we told what official Catholic Church teaching is on abortion. Why not use a search engine to find the Catechism?
We’re not even given a quote from the Catholic Medical Association whose spokespersons would have a lot to say about these two self-identified devout Catholic obstetricians.
If the story was the other way around –- say, a paean to Catholic women who oppose abortion — there’d definitely be some comments from pro-choicers in the story.
What is the use of covering a religion when — in these two stories — the content just blasts that religion and misrepresents it?
I’m not denying there are real differences among Catholics on abortion, but it’s one thing to feel conflicted about the matter and another to actually be performing the abortions yourself.
If we’re going to write about the religious outliers, then it’s only fair to accurately represent the faith they’re deviating from and include actual comments from real followers of that faith. In other words, cover the debate.
FIRST IMAGE: Photo of Jennifer Villavicencio from a press release by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.