Abortion: Language belies Belief

I would like to weigh in briefly on the difficult issue of abortion from a different vantage point. What I have noticed is that our language all too often belies our societal “pro-choice” credo. Usually the media is very careful to express itself within the confines of pro-abortion orthodoxy. Thus, the entity carried in the womb is never a baby, but a fetus, lest we assign certain moral status that does not fit with the prevailing social policy. In unguarded moments, however, the media can slip into language that runs contrary to pro-choice sentiments.

The case in point today is the headline I just read “’Desperate’ Actress Becomes a Mother.” My first thought was “Gee, I didn’t know one of the stars of Desperate Housewives was pregnant,” assuming that one had given birth. On closer inspection, however, I discovered that one of the stars, Marcia Cross, who was recently married, has become pregnant.

Hold the phone.

If she is a mother, doesn’t that mean she has a child? To define her as such is to give a certain status to that which she carries. Certainly I recognize that the word can be used in a purely biological sense, such as with the “biological mother” of an adopted child. Yet even here the necessary modifier “biological” suggests that the word is laden with deeper significance. In common usage, “mother” indicates a relationship between a woman and her offspring, which is meant to entail love and nurture.

If a pregnant woman is a mother then that which she carries is her child. The term “fetus” merely indicates the stage of development such as “toddler” or “teenager.” The basic moral relationship is between the mother and child, not woman and fetus. And were she to have an abortion, then she is terminating the life of the child. And here, if she is killing her child we are in a moral world at odds with the prevailing notions of abortion.

Another instance of language belying belief is the anti-cigarette campaign a few years ago, in which pregnant women smoking was portrayed as not only the woman smoking, but the baby as well. (Although I cannot remember the exact language, the term “baby” was explicitly used, not “fetus.”) Further, the whole ad gave the sense that the pregnant woman who smoked was immoral, as it does all sorts of bad things to the baby. (And picture a moment coming upon a pregnant woman lighting up while sipping a margarita and then gauge your emotional response.)

But why is that inappropriate? What moral status does a fetus have that makes the woman’s actions immoral?

This all suggests one of two things to me:

First, the fetus has the status of child, together with the moral considerations implied, only to the extent that we, or perhaps more appropriately the pregnant woman, impute the status of child upon it. And when we give people the power to give or withhold the designation of personhood, we are getting into some pretty murky ethical waters. Either the fetus has a specific moral status or it doesn’t. To say that it does only when the parent or the California Dept. of Health says it does puts us on a slippery slope, the termini of which we have seen reflected in slavery, the Nuremberg laws, and apartheid. Sorry to be so blunt, but there it is.

Or else there is the second option. And that is that our common language of motherhood and children born and unborn reveals that in our heart of hearts we know the fetus is a child. And all the interesting linguistic constructs of the pro-abortion movement are, in the end, contrived obfuscation.

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

I was on the road for a number of hours in a U-haul truck the other day taking #2 kid back for her sophomore year. Unfortunately, the little sound system that we rigged to listen to a book on disc didn’t work, so I was stuck with the truck’s radio. I wound up landing on a Catholic radio station, and decided to listen for a while, hoping for some juicy theological call-in program. As it was, I tuned in in time for their weekly broadcast of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

This was a disappointment for several reasons. First, it meant I would have to sit through a dreary conservative Catholic homily. I have yet to hear one of these guys on radio who could preach. And this one was no different.

But more significantly, it would seem to me that Benediction is meant to be experienced visually, not aurally. The point is to gaze upon the Host as the Eucharistic presence of Christ Jesus and adore him as our Lord. Frankly, other than the Liturgy of the Hours, Catholic worship seems ill suited for radio.

But on top of it all, I have to confess that I just haven’t understood Benediction. What’s the point? The point of the Eucharist is to receive it, right? That Christ might live in us and we in him. I almost felt like dusting off my 39 Articles: “The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them.”

Nevertheless, I listened.

It was hard to follow until the choir began to sing in Latin the chant attributed to Thomas Aquinas, Pange Lingua, here rendered in the translation from the Oremus online hymnal:

Now, my tongue, the mystery telling
of the glorious Body sing,
and the Blood, all price excelling,
which the gentiles' Lord and King,
in a Virgin's womb once dwelling,
shed for this world's ransoming.

Given for us, and condescending,
to be born for us below,
he, with men in converse blending,
dwelt the seed of truth to sow,
till he closed with wondrous ending
his most patient life of woe.

That last night, at supper lying,
'mid the twelve, his chosen band,
Jesus, with the law complying,
keeps the feast its rites demand;
then, more precious food supplying,
gives himself with his own hand.

Word-made-flesh true bread he maketh
by his word his Flesh to be;
wine his Blood; which whoso taketh
must from carnal thoughts be free;
faith alone, though sight forsaketh,
shows true hearts the mystery.

Therefore we, before him bending,
this great Sacrament revere;
types and shadows have their ending,
for the newer rite is here;
faith, our outward sense befriending,
makes our inward vision clear.

Glory let us give, and blessing
to the Father, and the Son,
honor, might and praise addressing,
while eternal ages run;
ever too his love confessing,
who from both with both is one.

At that moment I thought my heart would jump out of my chest. If only for the blink of an eye, I understood the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. It was adoration, pure and simple, of God as known in Christ Jesus our Lord. Asking for nothing save to be in the Lord’s blessed presence. No reception of his body and blood that the benefits of his death might be received by us.

Benediction is totally useless by most every standard we usually apply to our contemporary ecclesial existence. You don’t “get anything” out of the service of Benediction. You go simply to gaze at the one who is Lover of souls with rapt adoration.

Whether this is all actually true probably should be tested by actually attending such a service. And most likely, I will be disappointed. But in a liturgical milieu where we seem to first ask what we will get out of worship, it is a tonic indeed to think that there is a form of worship completely useless, reminding me it was never about me in the first place.

Is hospital chaplaincy a pagan vocation?

The other day I was visiting parishioners in the hospital when I had one of those incredible pastoral visits when you know you have done the work of the Lord. I found myself wondering if I might like to become a hospital chaplain at some point. Certainly the ecumenical chaplaincy staff at the Catholic hospital in Texas where my father-in-law passed away last December would be wonderful to join. And I also thought about the possibility that my local secular hospital might fund a chaplaincy position.

But then I thought about a friend who is a Presbyterian pastor in the Midwest, who is also a chaplain at a large secular facility. In such a setting he is often called to sublimate his Christian convictions to serve patients and staff who espouse a non-Christian tradition or none at all. Too often he is required to offer prayers to a generic god, or affirm some amorphous “immortality of the soul” rather than the hope of resurrection when speaking with a terminal patient of indeterminate religious affiliation.

Of late he has put me on his email list for his weekly spiritual messages sent to hospital staff. They tend toward the abstraction of generalized spiritual principles rather than being grounded in the admittedly scandalous particularity of Christ crucified. Thus the Gospel becomes a subset of some overarching category of “religion” of which there are a plethora of authentic religious and spiritual expressions.

Now note that this is not to dismiss the possibility that the imam visiting the Muslim patient may well impart a real spiritual benefit, but as a Christian I would see such a benefit in terms of the Orthodox maxim: “We know where the Spirit is. We do not know where the Spirit is not.” Any spiritual benefit is ultimately a presence of the benefit of the death and resurrection of Christ, although not known by that name. (See the story of Emeth in Lewis’ fantasy The Last Battle for what I am thinking in this regard.)

But in any event, it is not my call to serve an anonymous Christianity, if such exists, but to know nothing but Christ Jesus and him crucified. From this perspective, hospital chaplaincy in a secular institution would force me to live as a pagan, espousing my own deity, Jesus, as my own private household god, but serving the amorphous god of “religion” or “spirituality” in my public vocation.

Too many martyrs of the early church died because they would not serve such a god, nor would they relegate the Lord of heaven and earth to the status of an idol on the hearth.