Womb-Love

Father Ron meant well. He would never have intentionally excluded some children from his sermon. It was Wednesday mass, and the congregation was primarily children--kindergartners through eighth-graders--with a sprinkling of teachers, administrators and parents. The text was Colossians 1:15: Christ is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." Father Ron developed his theme: Children look like their parents; Jesus as God's Son reveals what God is like. He gave examples, picking out children: "You look just like your mother. You have her eyes, her nose, her dimple." Or: "You are an athlete just like your Uncle Sam. You have his genes." The point was profoundly simple: We know what God is like by looking at Jesus.

The comparison was not lost on the two third-grade girls seated directly in front of me. Both were dark-skinned, one from India and one from Southeast Asia. Both had Caucasian parents.

Two-thirds of the way through his sermon, Father Ron realized his miscalculation. He then acknowledged that there were those in the church who were adopted into families, and he asked them to raise their hands. Now the children were confronted with a choice: either hide their identity from the Catholic priest, or reveal an aspect of themselves that some children consider personal or private. Hands went up at half-mast.

Having witnessed this scene, I can well believe German sociologist Christine Swientek's account of another well-intentioned pastor's ineptness. At confirmation class, this pastor spoke about being "children of God" and looked for an example to illustrate this special relationship between father and children. He focused on a boy named Hannes, and said in front of 35 snickering and giggling adolescents: "You should try to imagine what it is like to be Hannes at home--his parents are not his birth parents. Hannes's parents are his adoptive parents who took him and raised him. They do not love him any less." Hannes was dumbfounded. He did not have the slightest idea that he was adopted. He stood up, went outside, and then ran away. He was first found three months later in juvenile detention for stealing food from a supermarket.