A Letter to a Confessor

Dear Father,

Just this lunch break, my close friend here at the office, asked me this question:  His cousin, is finally having her first baby in her forties.  She and her husband were unsuccessful for many years or decades and now have one.  Unfortunately, the child in her womb is a product of IVF.

I told him the Church’ usual stand based on the CCC.  I told him that his cousin and her husband were guilty of a mortally grievous sin.  Even if such an act brought life!  They should have instead adopted a child no matter how problematic it would be or they should have engaged in charitable works in the name of the Holy Mother Church. 

Imagine, how could they do it?  So what if they are so desperate?  So what if the child would make them complete, be a bundle of joy who would either resemble the father or the mother? So what if the child would grow up into a responsible person some day?  As long as the commandment of the Holy Mother Church is violated, they did a condemnable act!   For all we know, the child the mother is carrying is soulless or worse, is the devil incarnate since it goes against infallable Church’ law, ergo, against God’s holy will!

Then again…

Deep in the very core of my being, I know that there is a loving God who looks beyond our ridiculous laws.  I know too that God created a world that is not just black and white, but made up of different shades of gray.

Deep in the very core of my very being, in the silence of my heart, I believe they did not sin.  I believe that what they did is good in the eyes of God.

For what I believe, I am condemned.