I’ve been listening to the Catechism-in-a-Year podcasts from Ascension Press and I feel a bit like sausage. A lot of topics have been covered, and I am stuffed. I have contradictory impulses as we near the end of the year. I am actually about a month behind. There’s always a day here or there when I don’t listen. But I’m longing to be done. I want to reach that marker even if, at the same time, I need more space to think about what I’m hearing. 

In the meantime, this paragraph really struck a cord, because of a story I read. 

2232 Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

I read a story recently that was part of a list of Catholic stories from authors I hadn’t necessarily heard of. As you will see, from my perspective, there’s no reason to remember the title or author.

The Protagonist of the story is a man who lives in some small town. He’s Catholic, was married, and had three or four children. Only one of them was a girl. For unexplained reasons his wife leaves, and they get a divorce. When this happens the pastor of his parish is kind and sympathetic, but in a restrained way, no gushing emotion, and the two men become friends — of a sort. The Protag helps out at Mass, and starts going quite often during the week. He has a meal with the pastor from time to time. He goes to Confession on a regular basis. 

The wife never reappears in the story but the children visit occasionally. 

At one point his daughter, in her twenties by now, shows up. She’s in desperate trouble, having struck a pedestrian with her car.  She wants her dad to do something. So he goes out and conceals all evidence that she hit the guy. He drags the corpse into a ditch or wood or something, and changes vehicles with his daughter so he can fix the damage without anyone knowing, while she gets on with her life. And his deception works. The dead body is eventually found and the death attributed to something else. Daughter is off the hook.

Dad continues to go to Mass and receive Communion. He continues to be friendly with the pastor, goes to Confession constantly, but doesn’t mention this crime, and at the end of the story justifies himself. 

Brief pause here… 

When I realized that the justification was coming, I thought it might be along the lines of his friendship with the priest. I thought he couldn’t bear to tell the priest what he had done because it would change this relationship. And since it’s the only relationship he describes as having, it might be a true dilemma.

End pause … 

The Protagonist says he couldn’t possibly have allowed his daughter to live with the consequences of the hit-and-run. It would be so awful for her to go to jail or trial, that he would do anything to save her. He said that taking responsibility for stuff was all fine and good for his sons, but he simply couldn’t do it to his daughter. He said that God just didn’t understand, having only had a son. 

End of story. 

Where to start… !

As the quote from the Catechism above suggests, one place to start would be the question of whether what the Protagonist did, is the best for his daughter, based upon her eternal soul. There’s a whole, years long, question there, built on the foundations of what his daughter thinks about this episode over years, but of course, not addressed in this short story. 

I could also question whether the Protagonist actually loved his sons. 

But the thing that struck me most forcibly is this. God created mankind, “male and female he created them, in his own image and likeness.” 

Earthly fathers take their name from the Heavenly Father who was a Father first, that is, before human beings became fathers. Not being a theologian I don’t have some vocabulary I need, but God also created the feminine, whatever it is. He created the idea of sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. And He did not distinguish them from each other in terms of what they should do to reach Heaven. I could not imagine a true faith that failed to work that out. I can easily imagine making thousands of mistakes on this issue of how best to love and protect children, but … not … ultimately … failing to understand that God Who created women, does understand them.

I considered the question of whether the story was worth it as a teaching tool, but concluded that it is like showing someone how to do a math problem incorrectly. You can point out the errors, but it is really better to show the correct way to do the problem, as well. Showing mistakes increases the likelihood that someone will remember them, but not as mistakes. Especially if you didn’t actually provide a good answer.

True story. I’m reminded of my mother teaching me how to ride a bicycle. I was about ten or eleven when she finally said, “You spend all your time looking at the obstacles you might hit. Then you hit them. Look forward at the path you really want to take and you might get there.” And she was quite correct.

In the end, I think of this story as Anti-Catholic fiction. It describes a complete failure, but it presents the failure as success.