I’d like to paint a little picture for you…take you on a little journey…tell you a story. It’s a true story…one that I have lived, and one that has been, is now and will be lived by countless Catholic couples.
Come with me…
The room is dimly lit.
It’s quiet.
It has an old, dusty smell about it.
We sit, hand in hand on a couch, staring at the walls lined with spiritual books, pictures of the Vatican and the Pope, Mary and the Saints and crucifixes. Our hands are clammily entwined, more clutching than holding. I feel the tremble of my wife’s hands. I place my free hand lovingly over our hand’s embrace and smile at her when she catches my eye. I can see the nervousness lying shallowly under the surface.
We sit in quiet.
All we can hear is the faint tick-tock, tick-tock of the wall clock and somewhere in another room floorboards are creaking.
The creaking gets louder and a shadow falls under the closed door. My wife’s hand clutches mine even more tightly.
We found our way here after much deliberation. We know what the Church teaches. We also know that we cannot have more children. NFP has proven not to work. The tolls of pregnancy is too much to bare for my wife. She is physically and emotionally frail, to the point where another child will push her to the brink of death…very probably over the edge…
We found our way here to beg for a way to keep practicing the Faith…the faith we love so dearly and at the same time to save our marriage, which has become heavily burdened under these rules…
The door creaks open and our Priest walks in.
The greetings are pleasant and in hushed tones, as if the chamber itself need not be disturbed by our voices. Maybe it’s just that the silence in the room is so overwhelming that any noise seem too loud.
I put our plea before the priest. Plainly, to the point and clearly outlining our individual scenario.
The priest listens carefully to our situation. Paging through the Catechism he clears his throat and speaks the Vatican’s ruling:
"If NFP does not work for you we find ourselves in a scenario here that has only two solutions.
a) Live like brother and sister, never to be intimate with your beloved again,
b) Your wife will die. Better she dies here, leaving you with the babies all alone, than to face certain and absolute damnation."
It hits us like a brick. There are no exceptions. No loving graces trying to help a couple in dire need. And no way out. We will be sinners now, if we do anything but one of the above two choices. For the rest of our lives, we are caught in the web…
The black and white world, the prominent lines, the lack of loving exceptions to the Catholic rules sends a shiver down my spine.
The reality is driven home like a shattering glass in my head:
Separate from my wife, watch her die or burn in hell together…
This has been brought to you from the inner depths of my heart…where I lock up these emotions and thoughts. From where I shove them when they become too loud in the middle of the night as I lay, quietly, staring out the window.
This is the truth. This is what is in store for Cat7 if she is to follow the Church’s rules to the letter…like we are called to do. This is her fate and the fate of countless other couples…couples who also shove these emotions into that deep well when despair rushes up out of it to meet the light of the waking world…
Yes, I have been hurt by this and Cat7, I feel for you.
PM
