14.05.2019 Views

Angelus News | May 17, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 18

A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”

A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

sexuality, reducing his involvement to<br />

“producing a sample.”<br />

To go down that route was to make<br />

their child a “project to be realized”<br />

by any means necessary, instead of a<br />

gift arising from their bodily union.<br />

In vitro fertilization, they understood,<br />

was exponentially worse. Creating<br />

sons and daughters in a petri dish,<br />

to be inserted, discarded, frozen for<br />

later? Impossible.<br />

In their decision to preserve the<br />

connection between the conjugal act<br />

and conception, they were swimming<br />

against a strong cultural current. In<br />

the last few decades, the idea has<br />

grown that everyone “deserves” to<br />

bear a child, if they want to.<br />

Women as old as 69 have given birth<br />

using donated eggs fertilized in a<br />

laboratory, their bodies pumped full<br />

of hormones their ovaries long ago<br />

stopped producing. Women on career<br />

paths regularly freeze their eggs so<br />

they can artificially conceive when it’s<br />

convenient.<br />

And men sell their sperm to banks<br />

and become the “fathers” of thousands<br />

of children. And with new<br />

DNA-tracing technology, their offspring<br />

have embarked on soul-rending<br />

searches for their “real dads,” sometimes<br />

with grim consequences.<br />

But Adriana and her husband chose<br />

a better path. First they tried NaPro<br />

Technology, an approach to infertility<br />

that supports a woman’s complicated<br />

and delicate hormonal cycle, seeking<br />

to fix underlying abnormalities. Most<br />

distinctively, it “assists the couple in<br />

achieving pregnancy while maintaining<br />

the natural acts of procreation.”<br />

Though it works for many, it didn’t<br />

help Adriana.<br />

This was a great disappointment, but<br />

she and her husband decided to embrace<br />

God’s plan — even if that plan<br />

was nonparental spiritual fruitfulness.<br />

Last week she called me breathless<br />

with happiness. “I’ve spoken with the<br />

agency and they say that we can expect<br />

to welcome our little one within<br />

the year.”<br />

I cried a little. I remembered vividly<br />

when I spoke to my agency and<br />

started the process that would bring<br />

me my little miracle-daughter. There<br />

were so many luminous moments on<br />

that path, all of them pure and good,<br />

all of them resting on our family like<br />

a benediction. They are all ahead of<br />

my dear sister-in-law and her husband,<br />

and once again ahead of me, for I<br />

mean to live them all vicariously.<br />

Personally, I believe that God’s plan<br />

is always good, and blessed are those<br />

who follow it. <br />

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie grew up in<br />

Guadalajara, Mexico, coming to the<br />

U.S. at the age of 11. She has written<br />

for USA TODAY, National Review,<br />

The Washington Post, and The New<br />

York Times, and has appeared on<br />

CNN, Telemundo, Fox <strong>News</strong> and<br />

EWTN. She practices radiology in the<br />

Miami area, where she lives with her<br />

husband and five children.<br />

<strong>May</strong> <strong>17</strong>, <strong>2019</strong> • ANGELUS • 25

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!