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 conscience. Which, oddly, is also what the Church teaches: that one must follow one’s carefully formed conscience. Is that what happened?”
“Yes!” He could not see her vigorous nod.
“Let me pose a hypothetical question, Lucy. If you were dying now, and you were making your final confession, would you confess to having carried out any abortion procedures?”
She paused, thinking. “I don’t think I would …” she said finally, “… unless I was scared and wanted to touch all bases. But …” She considered further. “… really, no,” she said firmly. “Confession is for absolution from sin … and having gone over it in my mind, and after all the thought, prayer, and consideration I’ve given it, I don’t believe I’m committing a sin in this regard.”
“Then I’d have to agree with you: You are following a carefully prepared conscience.
“But you must be extremely cautious about performing an abortion-even in the first trimester. Only the most compelling reason can be sufficient for such an intervention.” Koesler paused for a moment. “I think your use of the clinic should be most rare. After all, a zygote’s sole purpose is to be human. So only the most compelling possible concern should be allowed to interrupt its development.”
“You’re right, Father. I will watch that carefully.” It was said in a measured tone, as if taking a vow.
“But”-her voice lightened-“you don’t know how good you’ve made me feel. Now, what do I do with Vinnie?”
“Leave it. Maybe someday we’ll get a chance to talk it over, just he and I. I know where he’s coming from. But in this case the question is the supremacy of conscience.”
Still, Koesler hesitated. He was loath to leave it at that. It was not all that simple. “But,” he said, after a moment, “we can’t afford to get smug about this. At this stage we’re muddling through at best. Every abortion is sad. Most of them are tragic … and every one of them is the end of a living thing. You know that and I know that. And someplace in this procedure, there is sin. Serious sin. Our Church is not teaching infallibly here. But, it is teaching. Add to that, we-you and I-are not infallible. We’re trying to reach a tolerable compromise. Because we need to.
“For now, I can tell you two things: You’re not excommunicated. And you listened to our Church reverently and you prayerfully formed your conscience. And now you’re following your conscience. You-we-may be wrong. But you are not committing a sin.”
“Thank you!” Never were these words more sincerely meant.
After he hung up, Koesler continued to think.
Not all that long ago, defining an actual time of death was of little practical value. There are, of course, incontrovertible signs that death has occurred. But there was no general agreement as to the exact moment of death. Then medicine and religion combined to agree that the cessation of brain function-as evidenced by the flat line-marked the moment of death. Then came organ transplants, and with them the need to know the exact instant the donor organ was available for “harvesting.”
In the opinion of Koesler-and many others-a similar criterion was needed to identify and agree upon the time that human life begins. The need was unquestionably there. But the problem polarized the concerned parties. One must be pro-choice-holding that human life begins at birth-or pro-life, holding that human life begins at the first moment of conception.
Neither side had so far been able to prove its point convincingly enough to reach any sort of agreement with the other.
Conscience, he pondered, what a tricky concept.
Dissenters from the supremacy-of-conscience theory frequently point triumphantly to the occasional murderer, thief, or traitor, and mockingly cite such wrongdoers’ claims that they were only following their conscience. But the people committing such acts are plainly sick people with sick consciences.