Flylady says, “Nobody loves a martyr.”
My DH pointed out that there is indeed, one specific group that really does love a martyr.
Oh yes, the Catholic Church.
An organization that can bring itself to honor, beatify, and probably canonize, a woman who thought like this:
Most troubling was her commitment to publicly reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy’s position on contraception at every opportunity. I found it difficult to see as a saint any woman who would advise the mother of a starving child to eschew contraception. Yet Mother Teresa did this. Consistently. And publicly...Teresa of Calcutta was no such missionary. It is precisely her willingness to validate the hierarchy’s position on “family planning” that renders her the favorite daughter of the hierarchy. …If the woman ministering to babies as they die of starvation can continue to preach against contraception…
She believed that poverty was a virtue to brought one closer to God.The more a person suffers, whether they ask for that suffering or not, the closer they are to God according to the warped fantasy of Mother Theresa… She believed suffering was good, abortion was wrong, and birth control was evil. …Why would a sane human being refuse pain killers to a dying lady in pain, other than a belief in a God. And what a poor argument for an all loving God that would be.
Anyone who can sit and watch a baby starve to death — STARVE TO DEATH — and still actually believe that that is better than swallowing a pill, using a condom, aborting a clump of cells — I have absolutely no hesitation in calling that person a monster.
And this is what I find disgusting about the Catholic Church, and those who shut their ears and refuse to question this garbage because it is oh-so-holy. Tell me what is holy about deliberately INCREASING human suffering? That is not holy — that is sick.
One summer the sisters living on the outskirts of Rome were given more crates of tomatoes than they could distribute. None of their neighbors wanted them because the crop had been so prolific that year. The sisters decided to can the tomatoes rather than let them spoil, but when Mother found out what they had done she was very displeased. Storing things showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.
This is how belief in religion can actually make an otherwise intelligent person think that suffering is good, starvation is fine, prudence is a sin, waste is doubt, birth control is wrong. Once you get those under your belt, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to decide that black is white, your mother is a saint, your father is a monster, crazy is normal, and the healthy family members are the ones with the problems.
There is always the danger that we may become only social workers or just do the work for the sake of the work.
Yeah. That “danger” is that someone might realize that the Church is bullshit. You don’t need God or Jesus or a church to do the right thing for another human being. But you do need them to make life decisions that fuck over your whole family. Like my mother did.
She had a blood clot in her leg when she was pregnant with her 4th child. My sister seems to be under the impression that it had to be removed because it might kill the baby. I am guessing they didn’t tell her the truth at the time, because she would only have been about 10 or so. A doctor in Kansas City got the thing out of her leg with a pipette, which was frankly genius.
The medical opinion was that after that pregnancy, she should have a hysterectomy, because further pregnancies could also kill her.
My mother refused, because — you guessed it! The Church said that wasn’t the right thing to do!
She went on to have two more pregnancies, and one of them produced me. The one with me sent her over the edge of sanity. I don’t know if it was spending nine months wondering if she would die, or if she was just mad as hell that (her medical condition + refusal of appropriate treatment) did not automatically equal a “get-out-of-having-to-have-sex-with-your-husband” card.
I strongly suspect that my mother’s view of her marital relations went something like this:
Sex is only for having babies.
I don’t want any more babies (despite what the Church specifically says in the marriage vows about welcoming children as a gift from God).
The doctors say if I have any more babies, I could die, unless I have this recommended procedure.
I choose to refuse this procedure because the Church says so.
This combination of my own choices means that if I have any more sex, I could die.
Therefore, I am no longer obligated to have sex with my husband, and he’s a bastard if he still expects normal marital relations. (But I still reserve the right to get outraged if I think he’s having an affair.)
Well, what the hell. It’s about as healthy a belief as anything else that comes from the Catholic Church.