This was going nowhere, just as Lucy had anticipated. Vincent decided to drop the bomb.
“Lucy, we can get back to these ‘procedures,’ as you call them, later. Let’s talk about something we can at least agree on: abortion.”
“If we must.”
“I hope-and I pray-that you can deny this. I’ve heard that you perform abortions in a clinic that deals in such things.”
“Did your informant tell you I have a policy of not performing the procedure after the first trimester?”
“What difference does that make?”
“A lot … to me … and to lots of people in the medical community-”
“That’s not a wart that’s growing in a pregnant woman!”
“It’s a zygote.”
“It’s a human being.”
“Come on … it’s two cells, for God’s sake!”
“For God’s sake, indeed! You’re killing a person.”
“Vince, with the union of a sperm and an egg there’s something that, left alone and with no trauma, will develop into a fully human being. I believe that happens during pregnancy. When? I’m not so sure. From the beginning, the multiplying cells will develop into a person. So, from fertilization to some point in the pregnancy only the most compelling reason can justify terminating. I believe it would be wrong to induce an abortion after that point unless there was some medical necessity … such as an ectopic pregnancy.”
“And you can terminate up to three months. Why not six? Eight?”
“After very long and serious study and consideration, three months seems right. Besides, Vince, the Church wants it both ways: You won’t prevent a pregnancy and you can’t terminate one.”
“Of course pregnancy can be prevented: rhythm and abstinence.”
“One is by no means foolproof and the other is unrealistic. Add to that, mistakes happen.”
Silence. Vincent studied his sister. She did not turn away.
“You won’t change, will you?” he said finally.
She shook her head, firmly.
“I don’t know whether you’re aware of it, but you are excommunicated.”
“What?”
“Anyone who performs an abortion, causes one, or provides needed assistance for one is automatically excommunicated.”
“What a terrible thing to say!” Lucy stood. “You may leave!”
“I can’t-”
“You … may … leave!”
Vincent stood. “I’ll pray for you.”
He didn’t need to don his clerical collar and vest; he hadn’t taken them off. Without further word, he left.
Tears flowed freely. Lucy loved her Church. She had turned down marriage proposals from two men. Not because she was not compatible with either of them, but because they were antagonistic to everything her Church meant to her.
She could not believe her Church would turn against her because of a prayerful and painful decision she had made-a decision that represented the best effort of her conscience.
She did not know where to turn.
Shaken, after some thought, she dialed a number.
“Father, this is Lucy Delvecchio. I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I’ve got to talk to you.”
Koesler detected the distress in her voice. “No, go ahead. What’s the problem?”
She gave a detailed account of her just completed discussion with her brother. “I think he’s wrong, Father,” she concluded. “But I’ve got to know … and I trust you. Am I … am I excommunicated?”
Lucy did not hurry the pause that followed her very personal question.
It was well that she didn’t. Koesler needed to think about this one.
Vince, as usual, had given a textbook decision based on institutional legalism. It was the Vatican line. But the Vatican generally is tardy when it comes to keeping up with the ever more rapid developments in theology as they are nurtured by theologians, priests, and laity. The most recent exception was when Pope John XXIII called for an ecumenical council and the reform of Canon Law. In this directive, a Pope was way ahead of everyone else in charting a new course for the Church.
But that was a singular event.
The present Church law was clear: In the 1917 Code, under which the Vatican currently operated, the Church held that any and all involved in the deliberate and successful effort to eject a nonviable fetus from the mother’s womb incur automatic excommunication.
But what Vince had forgotten-or decided not to include-was a strange paradox in Church doctrine, to wit: That, on the one hand, Catholics must respect the teaching authority of the Church, yet, on the other hand, Catholics must follow their well-formed consciences.
After weighing the pros and cons, Koesler decided to level with his young friend. But he would do so in gradual steps. There were a couple of relevant questions he was pretty sure Vincent hadn’t asked.
“Okay, Lucy, did you know there was a special penalty attached to the sin of abortion?”
Silence. “I guess I felt some guilt,” she said slowly. “But that was because I knew the Church condemned it.”
“You went through twelve years of parochial school and never heard of automatic excommunication for abortion?”
“If they taught that, it must’ve gone in one ear and out the other. I guess I just never considered that I would be involved with an abortion.”
“That takes care of one phase. If the Church attaches a penalty to a sin, the person has to know about the penalty-in this case excommunication-before he or she can incur the penalty. So, you’re not excommunicated. That would be a very ancient interpretation of Church law,” he explained parenthetically, “way back before my time in the seminary. Actually, excommunication is not as bad as it sounds; usually it requires only a slightly different way of confessing a sin to be absolved.”
“Okay.” She felt more relieved than she should have.
“Now, let’s consider whether or not you’ve actually been committing a sin. You told Vince that you studied and prayed over this matter … right?”
“Yes.”
“So you knew that the Church’s ‘official’ position was that from the moment of conception a fertilized egg is considered a person. Right?”
“Then …?”
“I just wasn’t convinced that the Church was realistically facing the problem.”
“What problem?”
“As to when distinctively human life begins.”
“So …?”
“So I read everything I could get my hands on. Talked to everyone I could-pro-life and pro-choice. Considered what I saw under my microscope. I was convinced that human life begins long before normal delivery. But when? Certainly not in those early cells dividing and multiplying.
“I think what finally threw me into the end of the first trimester was St. Thomas Aquinas.”
“Aquinas?”
“He taught that a fetus was invested with a human soul at the time of ‘quickening’-the end of the first trimester.
“Then I prayed like mad over it. It was as if I were tortured. Not about the conclusion I reached … but whether I would act on that conclusion.
“Finally, I decided I had to act.”
“So, after study and prayer, you found your conscience differed from Church teaching. You followed your
