Editor’s Note: During this Respect Life Month, on the weekend of Oct. 25-27, men and women who have been wounded by abortion will gather at a location in the Diocese of Peoria for a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat.

The journey to attend this weekend is often a long and winding one. One Diocese of Peoria woman who has “been there” has generously and courageously agreed to share her story.

KATHY’S STORY

In the fall of 1983, Kathy found herself a pregnant sophomore at an Illinois university.

Her boyfriend didn’t want his parents to know because he was afraid they would cut him off financially. Kathy didn’t want her own family to know because her mom had suffered strokes and had sunk into a deep depression.

“Dad was very occupied worrying over her (Mom) …. I just felt that one more thing would not be a good thing.”

IN RETROSPECT

“Now in retrospect I just think ‘one more thing’ like a sweet baby – she would have been off that couch and loving that baby.”

Kathy’s boyfriend’s support consisted of driving her to an out-of-state Planned Parenthood abortion facility. He had no money to help pay for the abortion. “Isn’t that sad?” she says. “I paid for the murder of my own child.”

Once onsite, “There was no counseling,” she adds. Even before the procedure started, “I was already crying; I knew it was wrong …. God was telling me through those tears, ‘Don’t do it,’ and I wanted just somebody to say, ‘Hey, don’t do it.’

“But nobody did.”

On the way home her boyfriend stopped at a laundromat. He had laundry to do. “Ok, thank you – this is confirmation that you are nothing but a boy, not a ‘friend’ at all,” Kathy says, remembering.

While she waited for him to finish his laundry, “I laid on the laundry room chairs.”

Back on campus, she and her ex-boyfriend found themselves in the same location at one point. He tried to talk to her. “I slapped his face and I walked away …. I was just so angry with him that he couldn’t have been a man, or even half a man, and now he wants to talk to me.”

But even through her anger, she was able to access forgiveness: “I saw his immaturity.”

REMAINED UNFORGIVEN HERSELF

Kathy says she had to walk by the Newman Center every day on her way to campus. Raised Catholic, she says, “Every time I went by … my heart would sink because I would be like, ‘God hates me right now.’”

One day she went into the Newman Center and asked a priest there if she could speak with him and if he would hear her confession. They went into his office and she told him what she wanted to confess.

“He leaned back in his chair and he put his feet on his desk … his hands behind his head and he said, “I can’t forgive that.”

“If he said anything else after that, it was like the teacher in Charlie Brown – ‘wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah’ – I was just crushed.” 

(Fact check: The priest was not only unpastoral, but uninformed. In January 1983, long before Kathy walked into the Newman Center, Pope John Paul II changed canon law to allow forgiveness of abortion in the confessional.) *

After the “aborted” confession, the priest at Newman Center wouldn’t give Kathy Eucharist at Mass. So, she stopped going unless she was home from school on break.

*An added step involved the local bishop restoring the individual to full communion in the Church – waived by many bishops – but even that requirement was later removed by Pope Francis.

STRAIGHT ARROW KID

Before her disillusionment, Kathy says, “I was a straight arrow kid.” Afterwards, she admits she lost her moral compass for a while. “I was like, ‘If I’m going to hell I may as well enjoy the ride.’”

Then came another wake-up call. While riding her bike, she was hit by a car, suffered brain injury, and had to learn life again. “I would go to the library and I would pick out the books that said, ‘See Dick run; see Jane run,’ and I would turn the page and try to remember what I had just read.”

Even though she still felt unforgiven, “I offered up everything from that point on to God.”

She prayed, ‘I probably can’t be a nun since I’m so terrible, but if you find it in your heart to send me a Saint Joseph, then I will do the best that I can.”

She was heard. “God sent me a carpenter, oh my goodness, and that carpenter was Catholic and went to church every week with his family, all of his siblings and his parents and I was like oh, wow.”

But she saw a hurdle looming. “He asked me to marry him and I said, ‘You might want to wait. I’m going to tell you something and you may not want to marry me then – I will understand.’” She told him about the abortion. “He said that he was very sorry and that he loved me, and he wanted to make a life together.”

She expected that their Pre-Cana marriage preparation would have included opportunities for confession, but for whatever reason, it did not. “So even though I got married I had still not confessed that abortion and so I never really dealt with it.”

HEARTBEATS

When she and her husband were pregnant with their first son, the doctor asked Kathy a seemingly innocent question at their initial meeting. “Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”

“My mouth dropped open … what?! … I could not believe that the baby had a heartbeat already.”

Another heartbeat was on Kathy’s mind. “That was pretty devastating. I mean very exciting (for this baby) but also devastating.”

Years passed, Kathy and her husband had two more children, and one weekend he participated in a Cursillo renewal retreat. Afterwards, on fire spiritually, he said to her, “I can’t wait for you to go.”

She went, but her plan was to use the weekend to discern whether or not she should return to work full time. God had something else in mind.

“The only thing I could think about that whole weekend was the abortion … and I kept trying to shove it out. This is not what I came here for!”

Finally, she confided in a deacon serving as a spiritual advisor at the weekend “what all of my tears” at the retreat were about. He suggested she might want to attend a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat.

WHERE SHE NEEDED TO BE

“Rachel’s Vineyard was just incredible,” she says.

“You’re with these people Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so you have the opportunity to gain some trust.

“When you sit in church you figure one out of four women – which means one out of four men – have had an abortion experience, but they don’t carry the letter “A” around their neck … so you can’t identify them.

“At Rachel’s Vineyard everyone in that room had been affected by abortion in some way shape or form.” 

“It just really helped to know that there were other people out there … because you only hear that people are like, ‘Oh, you can have an abortion and go about your life.’ You don’t hear that it’s traumatic in any way.

“I thought I would remain unlovable, and there was so much love from the other participants and the leaders that I felt brave enough to say the truth out loud and share my story.”

OTHER WOUNDS

And finally, confession.

She admits that after such a long time, “I still wasn’t sure that I was … really forgiven, so I did go back through Rachel’s Vineyard another time and I did confess again.”

She adds, “The priest was so patient. He didn’t say, ‘You already confessed that’ … he just listened, and encouraged healing.”

She had left other wounds unattended, and the second retreat helped her to reconcile those in connection with her abortion. “I kind of matched those two things together in my life at Rachel’s Vineyard.’”

A NEW RELATIONSHIP

And then there was the naming of her unborn child.

“It was a delightful process because of all the work that you have done that leads to that point …. to have your child be recognized as a human being that is a tremendous loss to our world, and then to see how she can make a difference today.”

Kathy gave her the name Madeline Grace.

“If one of my kids is going through a tough time I say, ‘Go help your brother.’

“It strengthened my faith in ways that actually changed my behavior. I do not like to miss a day of Mass, because she’s right there sitting on the altar just smiling and having a blast and hanging out.”

“I realized that I could have a relationship with this child.”

STILL TIME TO REGISTER (BUT NOT A LOT)

The next Rachel’s Vineyard is Friday through Sunday, Oct. 25-27 at a location in the Diocese of Peoria.

The $175 registration fee includes two nights lodging. Saturday and Sunday meals are also included, as well as all materials, and financial assistance is available.

But time is growing short. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call Rachel’s Vineyard coordinator Colleen Harmon anytime at 309-264-1489, or email her at rvrpeoir@gmail.com.

An orientation video introduced by Colleen is accessible on the Rachel’s Vineyard webpage, where you can also  register online.

Please note: Rachel’s Vineyard is completely confidential and will respect your privacy.