Seeking Advice on Unfortunate Situation

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swfan99

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I am currently a senior at a public college in New York State. Like most other Catholic guys my age, I like to keep my eyes peeled for good Catholic women which, sad to say, are becoming harder and harder to find. In college, I usually attend Mass at either my university’s Newman Center or at a local Church that I find to be one of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen, preferring the latter, especially because this summer they became a parish dedicated to the TLM.
The few times that I have attended the Newman Center, I’ve noticed a new character. A beautiful young woman who is the cantor at Mass. Of course, she caught my attention, and after a visit to the parish website I was able to find her name and a brief description of her activities in the club, where I found out that she was also a Catechist for the parish. “Wow”, I said. “Clearly she takes her faith seriously” and I therefore decided that once class resumes in January, I might make an effort to pursue her.
Last night, I stumbled upon her Twitter account. Scrolling through her profile, I eventually came to tweets that supported the BLM movement and gun control. These are things that I don’t agree with, but my disagreement has nothing to do with my beliefs as a Catholic. But, further down, I saw that she retweeted a post that said “Women should only be able to have abortions in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman chooses so.”
I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I was horrified not only by her opposition to one of the Church’s most important teachings, but also the fact that she is in a position where she is supposed to ensure proper faith formation of her students.
So, at this point, I’m not sure exactly what to do. I guess the two options are to pursue her, either romantically or even as a friend, and attempt to make an effort to change her views on this topic or just drop the whole thing all together. Mind you, even if she did take a romantic interest in me, I would never enter into a relationship with her if she maintained her current views on abortion. What do you think? Worthwhile effort or waste of time?
 
I think you should just skip the whole thing, as you apparently have some significant areas of disagreement with this woman.

Planning on changing someone before you’ve even made their acquaintance is not a good foot on which to start off a relationship.

I can also tell you that the vast majority of people, male or female, are not going to change just because some person they meet thinks they should.

You might consider just being normally friendly with her rather than “pursuing” her, and perhaps you might get a chance to discuss her views with her further and better understand where she is coming from than presuming based on something she retweeted. I’m sure if the Newman Center has social events you’ll have a chance to converse with her. I would also suggest that you find some way to discuss the subject without making it obvious that you “creeped on” her Twitter.
 
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I think you’ve made some great points. I wasn’t planning on meeting her and immediately berating her for her views, I would approach that in a less hostile way, but you’re right. I’m more concerned about the salvation of her soul than anything, but I think I’ll leave that in God’s hands.
 
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One should never approach any kind of new relationship looking to change the other person, even for the better.
 
She is not a finished product and it is best to discern prayerfully if you are intended to be part of her formation. Remember here that her entire life has been formed, in good part, by the lies of this world.

Due diligence is one thing. Creeping is quite another.
 
po18guy said:
She is not a finished product
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Yes. We should remember that very few people are 100 percent on the right track in college. I myself was always anti-abortion, and I made it to Mass on almost every Sunday, but I engaged in a lot of impure behaviors out of a combination of ignorance and thinking the Church was old-fashioned and out of touch with today’s reality. Any guy who questioned my behavior was immediately history, or I would find some way to turn the tables on him.
 
Don’t waste your time or hers.

I knew a whole lot of guys I’m my younger years who held all sorts of lofty aspirations and expectations. Most of these guys were single for a very long time.

What I surmised is that these obstacles to dating were self-inflicted.
 
Read the Book of Tobit. Less than an hour. The younger Tobias is an adult, the only child of his parents, and no spouse in sight. Very quickly, things can change for the better.
 
Nope! There are lots of gals who would agree with you and that’s a big area of disagreement! Check out catholicmatch where folks share their beliefs upfront. I met my husband there and we are very different personalities but see eye to eye on all the big things. 😁
 
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Don’t try to change her mind. If you want to get to know her go ahead. You don’t have to agree with her opinions or even views of abortion. Abortion is a complex issue and even if she may not agree with it, it’s hard especially as a women to not have sympathy for women in difficult situations who find themselves pregnant. She probably sympathizes a lot with women and other people in difficult circumstances and recognizes that there is no perfect answer and that for some abortion might even be the “best” option for their quality of life(mental and physical health and being able to be financially stable). You need to be more understanding of her perspective so you can be more understanding of her. Trying to change her mind will likely backfire.
 
Does the parish priest know that this woman, one of his catechists, has taken this position? He may want to ask her about it.

And I agree with the other posters, that this is probably not the one for you.

Pax
 
rosejmj said:
She probably sympathizes a lot with women and other people in difficult circumstances and recognizes that there is no perfect answer and that for some abortion might even be the “best” option for their quality of life(mental and physical health and being able to be financially stable).
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The killing of another human being can never be an option.
 
Well in this world killing is often an option(not just abortion) such as in wars. Just look at the Old Testament.

I’m not saying abortion is good, but no one wants to have an abortion. People do so as a last resort when they find themselves in a difficult situation. There is no easy answer. Sure, idealistically the baby is born and the single mom realizes that baby is the light of her life and get the help she needs to be a good parent and to provide for her child and provide a loving home. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s going to happen with a lot of people who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies especially due to things like rape and incest. There is no option that being suffering to either the mother, the child, or both. I see a person who is in a difficult position and who is suffering, not just some “abortion is bad”. It’s so easy to just focus on the how terrible abortion is and forget that there is a suffering mother involved.
 
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Just for the record, I am very pro-life, so I am not for a moment saying that I agree with the tweet which you quote in your post.

What I would say is that it doesn’t hugely surprise me to hear about a Catholic who doesn’t believe 100% of what the Church teaches, because I have learned that people of all religions have a tendency to pick and choose. I know Catholics who use contraception, Anglicans who venerate relics, Muslims who drink alcohol, Hindus who eat beef, Sikhs who cut their hair, Jews who treat the Sabbath like any other day, and so on.

What does surprise me is that somebody who holds heterodox opinions is able to be a parish catechist.

I would add, however, that people do sometimes retweet things without necessarily agreeing with the content. I admit that if somebody retweets something that is blatantly pro-choice, it is likely that that person is pro-choice, but if you don’t actually know her and have not been able to check her position, perhaps I’d be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I would also add that the tweet is rather stupid, because the last bit renders the rest of it redundant: “Women should only be able to have abortions in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman chooses so.” If the person who posted this is saying that women should be able to have abortions in cases “when the woman chooses so”, surely that would include all possible reasons, including rape and incest, unless the implication is that in cases of rape and incest women should be forced to undergo abortions against their will, which I doubt was the intention.
 
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rosejmj said:
Well in this world killing is often an option(not just abortion) such as in wars. Just look at the Old Testament.

I’m not saying abortion is good, but no one wants to have an abortion. People do so as a last resort when they find themselves in a difficult situation. There is no easy answer. Sure, idealistically the baby is born and the single mom realizes that baby is the light of her life and get the help she needs to be a good parent and to provide for her child and provide a loving home. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s going to happen with a lot of people who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies especially due to things like rape and incest. There is no option that being suffering to either the mother, the child, or both. I see a person who is in a difficult position and who is suffering, not just some “abortion is bad”. It’s so easy to just focus on the how terrible abortion is and forget that there is a suffering mother involved.
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First, we were not talking about killing in a just war, we were talking about abortion.

Second, the vast majority of woman who have abortions are using it as backup contraception, that is all. Looks to me that they made their decision when the chose to engage in sexual relations and are now trying to void that decision. For those who freely engage in sexual relations, there is no such thing as an “unplanned pregnancy.” Many plan on having an abortion if their contraception fails.

The tone of your post led me to believe that you think that abortion is acceptable in some circumstances. It never is, because it is the killing of a human being made in God’s image and likeness. Those who find themselves in a difficult pregnancy should be helped, I agree, as far as is possible, but the act of abortion can never be approved in any circumstance. There is more to just the physical act of abortion itself — there is also the emotional, physical, and spiritual harm to the mother, most critically, the potential loss of her soul, which is seldom discussed.

Pax
 
EmilyAlexandra said:
What does surprise me is that somebody who holds heterodox opinions is able to be a parish catechist.
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It may depend on who she’s catechizing. She’s at a Newman Center, and I’m aware of some Newman Centers where they have student volunteer catechists serving the local community by teaching the local young children. If you’re teaching primary school grades, you aren’t going to be addressing adult topics like abortion, and the priest or whoever is managing the catechetical program might not even be asking you your views on stuff like that. At other Newman Centers, the catechists may be doing things like leading Bible study for groups of students, which again probably doesn’t involve hot button issues. It’s unlikely that a young woman is going to be leading the RCIA program for converts or anything big like that.

I am willing to bet that at your average Newman Center, there are a number of students active there who are struggling with, questioning, or not totally in agreement with some of the Church’s social teachings. It’s the nature of young people and college campuses. The Newman Centers are likely to take an inclusive position rather than requiring that everybody be ultra-orthodox or get out.
I would add, however, that people do sometimes retweet things without necessarily agreeing with the content.
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This is also true. It can be hard to see from a retweet exactly what was going on in the whole conversation/ interaction. It may have been something the retweeter wanted to discuss further with others, so unless the retweeter is posting “right on, 100 percent agree” it is hard to tell if a retweet means total agreement.
 
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Chances are the conversation will fizzle with “I was kinda researching your twitter feed…”
 
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