One day in Catholic school, Sister Mary Francis pointed her finger like a gun at my classmate and said shooting her was no different than abortion. Both, she said, were intentional murder. That snapshot of Sister Mary’s pointed finger haunted me, but it did not prevent me from having an abortion when I got pregnant at 19. My situation does not matter. Each woman has her own story, and our compassion for her choice should not be determined by the context of the story she tells.
In therapy, I asked, “Am I damned?” My nightmares featured people coming after me who, like sister, believed I had committed murder. What I needed in therapy was help recovering from the Catholic currency of shame.
In my mid 20s, after my daughter was born, I visited our parish priest and disclosed my abortion. He watched me struggle to find the words because, though I believed I had made the right choice, I feared his judgment. His shaming. Instead, he offered me compassion. He told me that God’s forgiveness was not the question. That I needed to find peace within myself. He did not deny me Communion or any other sacrament.
