The Painful Reality of Facebook and Family

I don't go on Facebook very often. It is too darn painful! The faith is being or has been lost on both sides of our family. While our own children are still practicing Catholics and raising their children in the faith (Thanks be too God, despite many failures of their parents.) many of our nieces and nephews, not only have left the Church, but have swallowed all the lies of the secular world. And there are the other painful moments as well. One niece sent me a nasty response and unfriended me after I sent her a private e-mail advising, gently I thought, that she was sharing too much intimate information. Facebook, after all, is a very public communication method. You might as well write all your business on the front page of the New York Times.

Another niece was promoting Planned Parenthood and  I entered the discussion with some of the facts about this behemoth of child-killing. That's not the conversation to win friends since most already have their minds made up. I certainly do. Killing babies is non-negotiable! But for pro-abortion folks the right to "choose" is a sacrament. They never finish the statement to choose "to kill a baby." They won't even consider that an "unwanted" baby has any rights at all. So the debate usually ends up in verbal fisticuffs. As the daughter of an admiral, a sarcastic one at that, I'm sure I'm guilty of lacking gentleness in my comments. Mea culpa, I need to study Socratic dialogue. The first duty of the Church Militant, after all, is to love our adversaries.

My niece, in fact, loves born babies and I really don't understand the mental disconnect between associating a baby in the womb and a newborn in the arms. The baby doesn't change after birth; only his or her place of residence is different. How can you love one and be cavalier about the murder of the other? After all, none of us would be here if our mothers had not allowed us to live under their hearts for nine months before birth.

After being chided by my niece for my "tone" which followed a comment about Planned Parenthood's "prenatal care" which is laughable -- if women don't want to plan not to have children or kill the ones they've already conceived, PP generally hands them a list of "resources" and waves good-bye. Certainly understandable. How many staff members would turn out like PP executive director Abby Johnson and flee the premises if constantly confronted by the ultrasound of a baby in the womb. It's hard to kill someone to whom you've been introduced.

At any rate, I think I'm giving up Facebook for Lent and resolving to fast more for pro-abortion relatives whom I fear will face the judgment of God if their hard hearts are not changed. Jesus spoke so often about what you do for the least ones, will He overlook those who supported killing them? I'm also going to pray for my ancestors who passed on the faith. The only reason I'm a Catholic today is because of them. What a debt of gratitude I owe to my parents and my grandparents and great-grandparents and all those who tried hard to teach their children the truth, loved Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and gave an example of faith.

Thank you, Mom and Dad and all you other unnamed family members who loved Jesus and the Catholic Church. May Larry and I do everything possible to help our own children and grandchildren cling close to the barque of Peter which is the only sure lifeboat in this stormy world.