EVANGELIZATION

A Doctor Tells
of a Better Way

by William F. Colliton, Jr., M.D., FACOG

For a number of years it was my privilege to be the senior member of an Ob/Gyn partnership known as the Irish Mafia, Drs. Colliton, Hogan, and Hartley. During that happy and productive period of my life a powerful message was driven home to me. J.S., a lovely lady, age 31, entered the practice for obstetrical care. Her past history included a normal delivery of a well baby and one induced abortion, both of which occurred when she was in good health. Her physical examination confirmed a normal intrauterine pregnancy compatible with her menstrual dates and was otherwise normal. She was given routine prenatal care. On a routine visit at the midpoint of her confinement her blood pressure was significantly elevated. She was told to return in one week and strongly urged to be at bed rest. While being compliant with all the doctors orders, the patient indicated that there was no way she could remain at bed rest. Economic factors intervened. One of the joys of our practice was a 7:30 AM weekly meeting of the doctors to discuss problem cases. J.S. was scheduled to be presented at the next meeting.

    At 21 weeks gestation she presented herself in the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland complaining of not feeling well and a severe headache. William J. Hogan, M.D. was the man on call and had the most responsibility for her care over the next several weeks. Her blood pressure was 180/100. Normal readings in mid-pregnancy are around 120/70. Urinalysis showed a 2+ proteinuria indicating serious damage to her kidneys. In spite of his vigorous efforts to get her admitted, he was unsuccessful because of a lack of beds. She was transferred to Suburban Hospital. Over the next 2 weeks she continued to deteriorate rapidly, showing 4+ protein in her urine, her kidneys ultimately completely shut down, she lapsed into a coma, and began having serial grand mal seizures on a continuous basis. She was seen in consultation by the finest of specialists, a nephrologist, a hematologist, a neurologist, etc.. Nothing that medicine had to offer improved this patient’s conditions. She was in grave danger of death. The decision was made that J.S. had to be delivered by cesarean section to save her life and that of her child.

    This case goes back twenty years when intensive neonatal care was being born. Dr. Annop Tan, a neonatologist was summoned to the delivery room, equipped with an incubator, suction apparatus, and whatever else was required for resuscitation of the infant. An ambulance was standing by for transfer of the baby to Children’s Hospital. All three doctors scrubbed on the delivery. Being in a coma, J.S. was delivered by cesarean section without anesthesia. Her tiny infant died very shortly after delivery in spite of the best that neonatology had to offer at that time. Her hypertension responded to medication and after 7 weeks hospitalization, she was finally well enough to return to her home. One of the most edifying aspects of this case was the love and devotion of her husband. He never left her side during the critical portions of her hospitalization.
Almost one year to the day later, J.S. returned to the practice, again early in pregnancy. She was advised that we would take care of her again, but that she had come as close to dying as anyone could with her last pregnancy. She was offended when told that 98% of the obstetricians in Montgomery County would advise her to get an induced abortion. She had been down that road before and had no desire to revisit it. She assured us that: “This time every thing was going to be all right.” She still had her mild hypertension on medication, but did not develop any proteinuria. Her pregnancy proceeded relatively uneventfully until approximately 33 weeks when she called in the middle of the night to announce that she had delivered her baby at home. An ambulance was dispatched and she was met in the emergency room by one of us (Dr. Hogan) cradling a vigorous, healthy 4 pound, 3 oz. boy in her arms. Mother and child went home in 3 days, both doing well. This case demonstrated why most of the retired OB persons you meet have white hair. In most hands today, this case would have ended with an early induced abortion. When placed in the hands of a loving Creator, the patient delivered a well infant without benefit of an attending physician. It also demonstrated to me the accuracy of the statement that “He is the Potter, and we are the clay.” It was not medical science that brought this patient through her last pregnancy in a relatively benign fashion. It was the hand of the Lord.

    The discipline of obstetrics and gynecology houses most of today’s tough moral questions. While attending bioethical conferences over the past decade, I have heard several excellent presentations supportive of the pro-life position on such issues as induced abortion, assisted suicide, fetal experimentation, etc.. These are a few of the issues that divide the culture of life from the culture of death. In a majority of these cases fellow Roman Catholics have delivered these supportive talks. Their lines of argumentation have reflected the medical and legal facts, psychological implications, and the impact on society at large in an impressive and winning fashion. Rarely, if at all, has their faith connection with their thinking been mentioned. When asked about this obvious absence of a significant foundation for their reasoning, the reply generally is that this is the only approach which influences their audiences. This is particularly true of academicians. Their young students of today have had God eliminated from their educational experience. Beginning with the Golden Books and up through college, secular humanism has been the order of the day. When anything religious is mentioned, they are turned off. As Joseph Sobran recently reminded us: “Nothing defines a culture so clearly as its religion. Every culture is organizes around some transcendent sense of reality, some metaphysical order, some sense of the divine which it attempts to harmonize with.”1

        This paper will argue that the reality of a Godless education must be changed. It will be supportive, even insist that the lines of debate defending against the multiple attacks on innocent human life that dominate our culture today must be noteworthy for the truth of the facts presented and the logic of their conclusions. It will further reason that these arguments in the natural order are in no way mutually exclusive with arguments from the supernatural order. After all, God is the source of all truth. It will also propose that the ultimate success of changing our current culture of death into a culture for life will take the intervention of God, our Father. Our fellow citizens (and especially our younger citizens) must be introduced to the answer to the old page 1 of the Baltimore Catechism: (1) Where did I come from? (2) What am I doing here? (3) Where am I going? This paper will also offer a practical, tactical method of bringing God back into the learning experience. Possible reactions of the students exposed to this experience will be discussed.

    Admittedly, when God is reintroduced into the learning experience, a leap of faith is required. Faith, as believers have long understood, is a pure gift from the Creator. In order for the students of today to decide whether to accept or reject the gift of faith, they must be exposed to it. This brings us to those basic catechism questions. These considerations apply to all members of the human family. They are not restricted to believers. They are universal in their application. An outstanding presentation of this truth was offered by then Fr. Timothy Dolan at the Church of Little Flower, my home parish in Bethesda, MD. At the time Fr. Dolan was assigned to the Vatican Embassy and helped out on weekends at our parish. He is currently Msgr. Tim Dolan, Rector of the North American College in Rome. His homily, entitled JOB NUMBER ONE2 was delivered Sunday, November 3, 1991. It impressed me enough to get his notes (hand written) and type up the text for distribution to my nine children. It goes like this.

“The Lord our God is Lord alone!
Therefore you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.”

    First stated by Moses as recorded in the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, this morning’s first reading, repeated by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ as recorded by St. Mark, the evangelist in this morning’s gospel....And expressed in other words throughout the centuries.

    Says the psalmist: “In God alone is rest for my soul....He is the source of my hope...rely on Him alone...serve Him with all your heart!

    Says the Master: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything else will come in its place.”

    St. Augustine wrote simply: “Solus Deus!” God Alone!

    Says St. Ignatius Loyola in his first principle and foundation: “We are created to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by this means to save our soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for us, and they are to aid us to attain that purpose for which we are created.”

    The Baltimore Catechism notes: “Why did God make me? God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

    As the proverb has it: “Put first things first...first God, then everything else.”

    Or as the first of the Ten Commandments states: “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me!”

    In the fourth grade we memorized the Ten Commandments and the pastor came to quiz us. The first boy, Jim Lampe, whom he asked, nervously repeated the first commandment and then went blank, whimpering before a stone-faced Fr. Callaghan. “I can only remember the first,” and was relieved when Father responded, “Well, that’s the most important. Obey that one and the other nine follow.”

“The Lord our God is God alone!
Therefore you shall love the Lord, your
God with all your heart, with all your
mind, and with all your strength!”

God and God alone is Lord!
God and God alone has absolute power,
dominion, control, and authority!
God and God alone deserves absolute
service, obedience, and praise!

    Every other person, place, or thing in life comes second; no other person, place or thing can claim absolute power and control us!

    Spouse, children, parents, country, job, money, hobbies, causes, recreation, nature, play, career, politics, alcohol, sports, education, clothes, style, food, security, possessions, health, power......all come from God and exist only to show us His love and bring him closer to Him. The minute any of them...any person, place or thing in this life becomes more important than God, distracts us from God, or takes the attention, energy, and devotion God alone deserves, they must go....for to love God with all our mind, all our strength, and all our heart is the first of all commandments!

    You see our greatest temptation these days seems to be to live as if there were no God, or to live as if we are God. I was paging through one of those “How to self-improvement” books at a bookstore the other day. First principle: “Set one goal! Keep it clear! Keep everything subordinate to that one goal! Put everything in perspective to that one driving goal!”

Sound advice! And we have to search no farther than this morning’s lesson for our one goal:

“The Lord our God is God alone!
Therefore you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your
soul, with all your mind, and with
all your strength.”

    There you have it! There is reality! There is what every human being is supposed to be about in spades. How do we get this reality into the minds of our neighbors? To repeat a mandate mentioned earlier, presenters must be prepared to offer the best of legal, medical, and whatever other facts are required to support their thesis. For followers of Jesus Christ in the Roman Catholic Church, a teacher could interrupt his remarks at any time to state: “I’m a Catholic, and I will apologize to no one for that. As I have matured and studied the Church’s teaching about (abortion, euthanasia, human sexuality, etc), I am impressed with the wisdom of the Church fathers. If these guidelines for human behavior were followed, there would be no epidemic of teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, etc.” Fellow Christian believers have the same opportunity. One could say: “I recently read Donum Vitae and Evangelium Vitae, Roman Catholic resources which detail the sanctity of human life and the procreate actions which produce that life. Those documents are truly worthy of your consideration and careful study. Without a doubt we are living in a culture of death which, for the sake of our children, we must turn around.” For our Jewish brother and sisters, an aside like this could work: “I am a believer in God, our Father, and in Abraham, our father in faith. Think about it! If everyone could be brought to the realization that the Ten Commandments, personally given to Moses by God, are not only excellent rules to live by. They also would make excellent public health laws, and our society would be in much better shape.”
Example like these could be extended for pages. The point of this drill is to witness to our audiences the central role that our faith plays in our lives and, more importantly, to introduce the reality of God’s importance to all of society, but most particularly to our young audiences. Mrs. Judie Brown, President of the American Life League and my boss, is fond of reminding her listeners that: “The truth doesn’t change with the audience.” There is great wisdom in that statement. When one considers that the young people of today have systematically had God removed from their educational experience, something must be done. The radical and militant secularization they have experienced is in actuality a campaign to create a uniform national culture without religion. Sobran3 also reminded us that the educational system had gone so far as to obliterate the memory of religion by filtering it out of history and literature courses to the extent possible. The situation for us may seem impossible. But we must remember “the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19). In the Old Testament Ben Sira pursued wisdom and coupled it with a zeal for the law. He was motivated by the same concern we share today, concern that the younger generation would too readily embrace secular ways, pagan ways. Ben Sira noted from the start the way that God had created women and men and the special gifts he gave to them. (Sirach 17:1-17)

    For followers of Jesus Christ, the understanding is that this special heritage has been extended to all mankind. We can all know, and witness to others, the dignity of being God’s dearly beloved sons and daughters. Everything we have, our faculties and talents, are all pure gifts from the Creator. They are meant to help us share in God’s divine life, and help that share in His life transform us, the Holy Spirit in us leading others to be other Christs. We can all receive God’s very nature and become, through His life and love which we call grace, partakers of the life of the Trinity. Who could ask for anything more? Ben Sira also had advice for his people on the best way for them to preserve their lives. “Keep His Commandments and stay close to Him in prayer” (Sirach 17:20). Jesus gave us the same instruction: “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, as I also have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love” (Jn 15:9-10).

    In homilies these days, we are frequently reminded that we have a God who has a love for us which is unmeasurable, unqualified, and unchanging. These same homilists, however, seem reluctant to remind us of our sinful natures, and the effects of sin in our lives. Jesus’ teaching suggests to me that this message of consuming love is not mutually exclusive with learning how to live righteous lives. On the contrary, He tells us that we show our love for the Creator by keeping His commandments as noted above. Our young people need to hear this in their homes, their schools, and their churches. God is not mocked. As far as their reaction to this approach, it might be a complete turn-off. So be it. A gentle reminder to those who like to gamble a little could go as follows: “You know that you will be very fortunate to live for a full century. Consider the fact that there just might be an eternity, and a judge waiting to tell us whether we go to heaven or hell. If this is so, one is well advised to consider his or her deportment in this life. Eternity versus 100 years makes for very long odds when there is even a possibility of a gehenna.”
In today’s classrooms it would not be at all unusual to encounter one or two extremely bright, articulate students endowed with leadership abilities who state: “Professor, stow that nonsense about a Supreme Being, God, and all that other superfluities. Just give us the scientific facts.” The teacher’s response to this kind of assault might be: ‘Don’t think about my religion. Listen well to my arguments and think about them.’ The teacher also should be ever mindful of Psalm 127:1: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.’”

    As reported in the Pope John Center Highlights4, my very dear friend and counselor, Edmund Pellegrino, M.D. was privileged to give the 12th annual Father Edward J. Drummon, S.J. Lecture in Health Care Ethics. The doctor, who was one of the pioneers in bioethics, expressed his personal conviction that we are on the verge of “The Catholic Moment” in health care ethics. The article continued: “He pointed out that recent developments in philosophy have called into question the ability of reason alone to address all the critical issues facing humanity. The reason alone approach has dominated the work of bioethics centers for the past quarter century and has been shown to be inadequate. Pellegrino believes that bioethicists are now ready to be open to the full range of human wisdom, which embraces religion as well as the findings of empirical sciences.” Edith Stein,5 who was recently canonized, had this advice for her follower: “On the question of relating to our fellowman—our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.” Fr. Chris Beretta6, a newly-ordained priest in the Oblates of St. Francis deSales said the favorite scriptural quote of his order’s founder was: “The gift you have received, give as a gift” (Mt 10:8). The gift we have received is Jesus Christ, or, if you prefer, faith in Jesus Christ. All of us must be about sharing such a precious present.

    There you have it. The details of a better way. To sum up, every human person is a sojourner on his way to our permanent home. In dealing with today’s critical social problems, the secular approach, arguing from the natural order, has failed to provide the required answers. For our students, by offering solutions to the culture of death propositions without proclaiming the transcendent and transforming power of the Spirit, we run the risk of depriving them of a lasting solution. We must become what we are! Brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God, the Father, empowered to deliver His triumphant and loving message. In his homily in Camden Yards, Baltimore, October 8, 1995, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II7 reminded us of these realities: “There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us...’The Spirit God has given us is no cowardly spirit...Therefore never be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord’ (II Tim. 1:7). Thus wrote St. Paul to St. Timothy, almost 2000 years ago; thus speaks the Church to American Catholics today.” There is a challenge to the courage of all of us from courage personified.

Dr. Colliton is Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the George Washington University Medical Center.

The author would like to express his gratitude to Fr. Tom King, S.J. who encouraged the composition of this paper and offered several suggestions to improve its quality, such as it is. He would also like to thank William J. Hogan, M.D. who was mainly responsible for the care of J.S. and had better recall of the medical facts in her case.

End Notes
1    Sobran, Joseph, “Diversity and Divinity Apart,” Washington Times, 6/29/97, B3.
2    Msgr. Timothy Dolan, personal communication.
3    Sobran.
4    Pope John Center Highlights, Vol. I, Number 2, June I, 1997.
5    Garcia, Laura, “Edith Stein-Convert, Nun, Martyr,” Crisis, June 1997, p.23.
6    Rev. Chris Beretta, personal communication.
7    Most Rev. John Keating, Pastoral Letter on Courage, Aug. 29, 1996, Epilogue.