By Carol McGrath, Holy Spirit
Catholic Community, Butte

Do we know what actually happens to many children after they leave the womb?

Right to life and dignity of life are hallmarks of the Catholic faith. Today the Church advocates for the safety of children with homilies and articles designed to educate and raise awareness of child abuse in all its forms.

Widespread problem with very personal effects

According to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, in 1999, child protective agencies had information on an estimated 3,244,000 children in the United States who were alleged victims of child maltreatment.

That eye-opening number of more than three million kids suffering from physical violence in their homes becomes very personal when you visit the website of the International Child Abuse Network, www.YESICAN.org.

First, one learns why a tiny blue ribbon has been chosen as the Network’s logo: grandmother Bonny Finney, its founder, recounts the events that led her to wrap a tiny blue ribbon around the antenna of her van. She reveals how her sixteen-month old granddaughter had her leg broken in four places and how her hand was burned by cigarettes from the tips of her fingers to the top of her wrist.

Then she reveals that this toddler’s injuries occurred AFTER her four-year-old grandson was placed in foster care. These two children had been abused by the same mother, her own daughter, whose use of drugs destroyed her family. The older child was returned to the care of her daughter against the protests of the grandmother. The grandmother never saw her grandson again. Instead, she learned that his body was discovered wrapped in a sheet, stuffed into a toolbox and dumped in a swamp.

Grandmother Bonny Finney then recalls the boy’s last pleas to his foster mother, “My mamma don’t love me.” He cried to stay with the foster parent. However, a judge “overruled” his pleas and decided that he be returned to his mother’s care. Bonny Finney still wraps that small blue ribbon around her van’s antenna as a constant reminder of the battered, bruised bodies of children who need our help.

Addiction, ignorance create dangerous environment

A figure in the January newsletter of Butte’s District XII Human Resources Council provides an example of the major role substance abuse plays in child abuse: it was a factor in over 80 percent of the cases where children in that county were removed from their homes.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church addresses drug abuse immediately in its introduction (#5) as part of a newer pattern of poverty, or slavery, which often affects even financially affluent sectors and groups. It states the Church is saddened by indifference and “contempt for the fundamental human rights of so many people, especially children.”

In Bonny Finney’s tragic account drug abuse intervention was impossible because of our society’s complacency, its lack of knowledge about addiction, and its hostility toward addicts.

We know that drug addiction is not a contagious disease. However, it is a disease that our culture treats by demonizing its victims: they are “bad apples,” they are “weak and lazy,” they have “accepted the devil,” they are “negligent parents.” Many decry the expense of prisons they see as full of people who “feel sorry for themselves,” who sought in drugs and alcohol an escape from real life. Blaming and incarceration are evidently easy fixes, for society squirms and dodges the compassionate alternative of treatment and the hard work of rehabilitation.

The “root” of many addicted felons, men and women, was planted in toxic ground. The affirmation many received from the time they began to have memories was: “I never wanted you,” “I should have aborted you,” “You are stupid and worthless,” “You have made my life miserable.”

In a personal encounter with a young, beautiful mother of four, a recovering drug user and seller who served time in prison, I learned that her lack of education led her to give her babies the legacy she received at an early age: “Don’t trust anyone” and never let “them” see you cry. Only through treatment has she come to trust others. Today, she is a productive and recovering member of society trying to restore to her children something that she had denied them: their innocence and her heart.

Catholics must uphold children’s rights

In a profound way, all people live in the “womb” of the world. But for many it is a hostile secretive place with a tug of war over nutrition and acquisition.

Millions are abandoned as much as if they were discarded before they could experience their dreams and potential.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church #244 teaches us that “special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights.” We’re told to publicly recognize the social value of childhood.

As Catholics, we must set aside more than just a week in October for “respect life.”

We must rally around the developing children who were NOT aborted just as much as we carry signs for those who were.


Carol McGrath is married to Deacon Dan McGrath of Holy Spirit Catholic Community.
Justice Voices articles are coordinated by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development committee of the Diocese of Helena.

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 25, No. 5, May 15, 2009.