By Melissa Ohden
There I was, my face pressed to the glass of the partition in the airport, straining to hear the announcement of Pope Francis Wednesday, reveling in the excitement of the moment.
Such an important moment for the Catholic Church and for our world, to see who the Vicar of Christ would be. My heart was bursting with love for the Cardinals and for the Church and most of all, Jesus, who is at the center of it all.
All aglow I then suddenly heard the following words from one of my fellow Pope-watchers: “I’m Catholic and personally pro-life, but I’m not going to tell anyone else that what they do is right or wrong. Who am I to judge?”
I could also feel the air being let out of my virtual excitement balloon as those words were spoken. I never saw this statement coming. This same woman had just expounded upon the beauty of her faith, and the joy in visiting the Vatican. Her “different strokes for different folks” statement knocked the wind straight out of my sails.
For now, I want to focus on the “personally pro-life but” statement that most people have heard before, too. (And, yes, I’ve heard it more times than I can count.)
Trying to keep one eye glued on the TV screen so that I wouldn’t miss the moment when the doors would open on the balcony, I turned my head towards the woman who was exchanging comments with other women-some positive and others negative-about the Catholic Church.
I looked directly at the woman who had made the “personally pro-life BUT” statement and tilted my head in an attempt to make eye connect . I said,
“I survived my own biological mother’s abortion. What would you say or think about that?”
It’s hard to write in a way that adequately conveys the gentleness with which I said it, but please know that I did. I wasn’t looking for an argument, nor am I ever. I just wanted to know how her beliefs about being “personally pro-life” would then fit with what happened to me.
I looked again into her face, waiting for an acknowledgement.
I never got one.
Not a word. Not an utterance. Not even a visible sign on her face that she had heard or understood the words that I’d said.
Maybe she thought that I was kidding. Maybe she couldn’t understand what I was talking about.
Or maybe she had no idea what to say. I have this sneaking suspicion that it is the latter, because we had been conversing before that for over a half an hour about our faith, about our children, about the sanctity of life!
This same “personally pro-life” woman had already heard me educate a fellow on-looker about the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion and other issues, and we’d talked about a documentary that I had been filmed for this week where I talked about how all of these things.
When we had talked about the other issues, her eyes often met mine; there was a conversation taking place. And now, in response to hearing from someone who had actually survived a (saline) abortion? Now there was dead silence.
We now both watched the TV screen in silence. The mood had very quickly shifted; I knew that my words had been heard. As we left the airport Wednesday, I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. I had not intended to offend and if she took offense was it perhaps because of something at work in her own heart?
Although I could spend pages talking about how I believe we can and should respond to these “personally opposed but ” statements, I’ll keep it brief.
What I do want to do is provide you with encouragement and strength to respond, no matter how uncomfortable the situation, no matter how “off” the timing, to statements like “I’m personally pro-life BUT….” You never know the difference that your response to that person may make in their life. You never know the difference that your response will therefore make in other’s lives that that one person has contact with.
You also never know if someone else may have the great opportunity to listen to the conversation and be touched by it likewise. You just never know…..so instead, you have to DO. You have to SAY.
And most of all you have to DO and SAY with LOVE.