Alejandra Correa, The Pastoral Call for Post-Abortion Healing and Reconciliation in the U.S.
After the legalization of abortion the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a plan that helped to diffuse enormous amounts of information on the dignity and sanctity of human life throughout the United States Catholic Church (USCC) and American society at large. Yet, the freedom to choose and the right to privacy have remained more important. We have seen through various studies presented that abortion indeed is not a choice made in freedom or without conflict. In fact most women who come to the decision to abort feel they have no other choice. They choose abortion against their own values, religious beliefs and convictions.
The USCCB's call for healing and reconciliation helped to launch a parallel call to further investigate the affects of abortion on women. We have examined what is termed today as "post-abortion syndrome" (PAS) and have found that the psychological and emotional ramifications on many women are extensive. We have also examined the many risk-factors that may lead women to be pre-disposed to suffering PAS or other negative consequences. These have given us more insight as to how in fact almost all women are exposed to suffer negative affects after an abortion experience.
Through the different studies considered in this paper we are able to see how the USCCB call for healing and reconciliation was a prophetic one. The USCCB in a way predicted the "far-reaching consequences" of abortion and since then many women have sought out healing and reconciliation. Project Rachel (PR) was able to answer this call almost a decade later. Since 1984, PR has been helping to bring many women who have regretted their abortion to the healing and reconciliation. In this way, PR has become an evangelizer. Being first and foremost centered on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, PR helps to bring aborted women back to full communion with God and the Church. It also helps them enter a much needed grieving process so that they may mourn the loss of a life and finally be reconciled with their child and ultimately themselves.
PR is an instrument that is helping to bring many back to the Church and back to the living Lord. It has been a vital response to today's new evangelization by reaching out to many women exactly where they are. The approach has been simple: to bring aborted women a message of hope and of a renewed future. It has also helped to give the USCC a renewed face in the midst of the sometimes extreme pro-life movement. The message of reconciliation is proclaimed every day in the lives of these renewed women. They in turn are becoming eloquent witnesses and defenders of life.
The new evangelization brings the one and the same message of Christ to modern man. Modern man finds himself ever more entangled in the web and lies of abortion. PR and other programs like it, are responding to a very urgent need in the US and beyond. Thorn posed a very important question that perhaps we need to ask ourselves today. Amidst the growing number of women that take recourse in abortion around the world, and the manner in which Mass attendance or even religious practice is diminishing, can we boldly ask ourselves if perhaps they are linked?1 Could it be that perhaps the rapid secularization of so many countries and the paradoxical view of abortion as a right and freedom are bringing more people to abandon their convictions and religious beliefs?
Even if we cannot systematically pin point abortion and post-abortion reality with the reduction of religious practice, especially in the Catholic Church, we can still correlate the consequences of abortion with the affects of sin. From the beginning of time sin has divided people, nations, families and ultimately man from his unity with God. Because abortion and its consequences are so vast today, we can see that along with other social and personal sins they are continuously separating man from God. Yet hope always remains and reconciliation is always possible. God does forgive the sin of abortion and PR is helping to make this possible.
The objective of this thesis was to demonstrate how new evangelization must address the vital needs of our time, such as post-abortion healing and reconciliation. PR is a concrete example of a response to this call. PR is helping to evangelize this areopagus of aborted women. It is bringing them the Gospel truth that abortion destroys but that the God of mercies is able to forgive and even transform such a terrible sin into an opportunity of new life and new hope. It is a response to today's needs. It is a message made for today's women and even men that regret their abortion. It is a powerful instrument that helps God to create powerful witnesses for our Church and our time.
Copyright © 2007 Alejandra Correa
Alejandra Correa. «The Pastoral Call for Post-Abortion Healing and Reconciliation in the U.S. A Vital Response to Today's New Evangelization. Conclusion». vita9.org [in linea], anno 1 (2007) [inserito il 1º aprile 2007], disponibile su World Wide Web: <http://vita9.org/>, [6 KB].
V. Thorn, Project Rachel: Faith in Action, 161. Testo