I've been reading this blog since it started, but it wasn't until I heard your podcast on word on fire the other day that your main assertion really started to click: The idea that it can be virtuous to ask for help, comparable to the virtue of giving it. It really hit home. I've been chewing on it every day since
My mom, who just finished reading The Dignity of Dependence: "Now that I read it, I see these situations everywhere!"
She just got back from a child-free wedding of "successful" people and was telling me how none of them had any margin for dependence and were bragging about their work and travel. Mom said it was nice to visit and then she was glad to come home to a walkable neighborhood with grandkids who come over to play every day. There they jet set, here there are playdates and baptisms and community dinners, and we're more interested in who's having a baby and who's starting the meal train than celebrity gossip.
Leah, you asked on your Christianity on the Spectrum interview for listeners to drop a comment in your most Substack post with book recommendations of "biographies of things." I love conceptual histories and reception histories and remember finding Patricia Meyer Spacks'
I hope you enjoy it! We didn't have a word for boredom until about 1750. Conceptual histories of states of mind are great fun because the emergence of a new word to name something about our experiences indicates that the culture is changing in significant ways. Following a new term is such an interesting way to track those changes.
As an autistic person, I got into conceptual histories because I was constantly wondering "What the hell are these people talking about? What do they mean when they say 'authenticity' or 'spiritual' or something like that in awed but vague tones?" But then I just got hooked on the genre because it's such an intriguing way of exploring history.
If I recall, Patricia Meyer Spacks recounts that boredom initially indicated a kind of moral failure that wealthy women were particularly prone to. They failed to be properly attached and engaged to a meaningful world.
I like to say that people who are rarely bored are rarely boring.
I wanted to be sure you saw this https://www.wvxu.org/education/2025-10-06/cps-parking-lot-safe-sleep. Ive been mulling on the idea that life us only as valuable as the willingness of others to care for it and i want to be like "dammit Christians, theres a lot of life out here to care for." We should have little margin for much else when current policy in our country is to have women and children living in cars in Ohio, with access to a clean bathroom being the humane improvement.
You still endorse a political party ànd à church that teaches that women are in every single aspect inferior to males. Women in the Catholic doctrine NEVED image Christ ànd therefore never image God in the way males do. You teach that women’s ONLY purpose is to be 3D printers for males to use to make more males. Why not blame mothers? You think all women — excepting your precious self, of course — are worthless weak, stupid, cowards who should be locked in the kitchen. Go ahead and blame us. Your church already does.
I don’t see anything that hints at a philosophy grounded in the idea that life only has value based on the feelings of those around or reliant or in relationship to that life.
The short version:
- All life is a gift.
- Horror at a society where abortion can seem like the best option due to economic and social realities. And a need to confront these realities as a Church.
- A recognition that there are circumstances where abortion is the best option, including especially in cases where continuing the pregnancy endangers the life and welfare of the mother.
Throughout there’s a real sense of deep respect and honor for the developing life in the womb, and of our deep dependence on one another in a society that disrespects that mutual dependence. I think you’ll like this statement!
It also includes policy ideas that include regulation of abortion as necessary for protecting life, but opposition to legal and logistical barriers for morally justifiable abortions. [I find this section… thin]
The quotations from the books are drawn from the contemporaneous church documents around the time of Roe v Wade, not the ones from the 90s.
In the document linked, I'm not surprised to see less about what makes the baby different from its mother, since the only circumstances for termination the document explicitly blesses are:
-when continuation of a pregnancy presents a clear threat to the physical life of the woman
-when the baby was conceived by rape/serious coercion
-when the baby has a fetal abnormality that makes him or her unlikely to live
Definitely on my TBR list. Does he also discuss the canonization of St. Gianna Beretta Molla?
My understanding is post-Roe the most significant radicalization occurred on the ‘pro-life’ side. Whereas before Roe there was a broad consensus that when a woman’s life was at risk abortion was a necessary procedure, despite the fetus being a life, post-Roe there was a deliberate campaign to venerate mothers who martyred themselves for the unborn. This seems related to what you talk about in the article - the idea that the unborn life should be weighed equally to the mother’s life.
This move from the value of life being incalculable to an embryo weighing equally to a mother beginning at conception was also used to justify the murder of abortion providers and bombing of clinics post Roe.
I think you may have seen a too-brief summary of St. Gianna's life and death:
>Two months into the pregnancy, Gianna was diagnosed with a uterine fibroma (a tumor which is usually benign, meaning non-cancerous, but can contribute to problems during pregnancy). Two of the typical treatments would result in her unborn baby's death—a surgery removing the contents of her uterus, including both the fibroma and her baby (which would have been illicit under Catholic teaching), and a surgery removing her entire uterus including its contents (which would have been licit under Catholic teaching).
>Many retellings of St. Gianna’s story end here, stating that she forwent the treatment entirely and died for her baby. That is inaccurate. St. Gianna chose the third treatment option available to her: a more cautious surgery removing the fibroma but leaving her daughter in utero (which was licit under Catholic teaching).
>This surgery was generally successful, and Gianna’s condition returned to expected after it. But she must have worried that there were more problems to come; as this rainbow pregnancy continued, she told her husband and other family members that if, at any point, anyone had to make a choice between her life and that of the baby, they should choose the baby's. Toward the end of her pregnancy, she went through a medical induction of labor, which was unsuccessful, and eventually gave birth through Cesarean surgery to a healthy baby girl, whom she named after herself.
>After baby Gianna’s birth, things took a turn for the worse. St. Gianna contracted septic peritonitis, a condition that involves complications of an infection of the lining of her abdomen. This likely was caused by bacteria that entered her body during the C-section, that then spread to her bloodstream. The infection took over her body, making her organs dysfunction, and she died a week after giving birth. St. Gianna was not canonized for dying, nor for dying for her child. She was canonized for her heroism in being willing to die for her child. Her death was unrelated to the life of her child. In other words, she could have been heroic and survived.
Thank you! Appreciate the clarification on these details.
I'm less interested in the particulars of her case (or other cases of women choosing their baby over their own life) and more about the way these narratives are propagated and to what end. And how that has changed over time. Roe was an inflection point for (several) narrative shifts.
I've been reading this blog since it started, but it wasn't until I heard your podcast on word on fire the other day that your main assertion really started to click: The idea that it can be virtuous to ask for help, comparable to the virtue of giving it. It really hit home. I've been chewing on it every day since
This is part of why I wrote a book! It’s so counter to the culture I think it takes a long sit with the idea / many examples for it to click!
My mom, who just finished reading The Dignity of Dependence: "Now that I read it, I see these situations everywhere!"
She just got back from a child-free wedding of "successful" people and was telling me how none of them had any margin for dependence and were bragging about their work and travel. Mom said it was nice to visit and then she was glad to come home to a walkable neighborhood with grandkids who come over to play every day. There they jet set, here there are playdates and baptisms and community dinners, and we're more interested in who's having a baby and who's starting the meal train than celebrity gossip.
Is your mom… interested in reviewing the book on Amazon?
Amen!!!
Leah, you asked on your Christianity on the Spectrum interview for listeners to drop a comment in your most Substack post with book recommendations of "biographies of things." I love conceptual histories and reception histories and remember finding Patricia Meyer Spacks'
"Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind" to be a surprisingly exciting book about boredom. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Boredom/4ETSx0nA5fEC?hl=en&gbpv=0
Oooh, thank you!
I hope you enjoy it! We didn't have a word for boredom until about 1750. Conceptual histories of states of mind are great fun because the emergence of a new word to name something about our experiences indicates that the culture is changing in significant ways. Following a new term is such an interesting way to track those changes.
As an autistic person, I got into conceptual histories because I was constantly wondering "What the hell are these people talking about? What do they mean when they say 'authenticity' or 'spiritual' or something like that in awed but vague tones?" But then I just got hooked on the genre because it's such an intriguing way of exploring history.
I grew up with my dad who would say "Boredom is an insult to the self!"
Very 18th century in his sensibilities there!
If I recall, Patricia Meyer Spacks recounts that boredom initially indicated a kind of moral failure that wealthy women were particularly prone to. They failed to be properly attached and engaged to a meaningful world.
I like to say that people who are rarely bored are rarely boring.
I wanted to be sure you saw this https://www.wvxu.org/education/2025-10-06/cps-parking-lot-safe-sleep. Ive been mulling on the idea that life us only as valuable as the willingness of others to care for it and i want to be like "dammit Christians, theres a lot of life out here to care for." We should have little margin for much else when current policy in our country is to have women and children living in cars in Ohio, with access to a clean bathroom being the humane improvement.
You still endorse a political party ànd à church that teaches that women are in every single aspect inferior to males. Women in the Catholic doctrine NEVED image Christ ànd therefore never image God in the way males do. You teach that women’s ONLY purpose is to be 3D printers for males to use to make more males. Why not blame mothers? You think all women — excepting your precious self, of course — are worthless weak, stupid, cowards who should be locked in the kitchen. Go ahead and blame us. Your church already does.
Amazing, every word of what you just said... was wrong.
Here’s the 1991 ELCA Social Statement on Abortion: https://elcamediaresources.blob.core.windows.net/cdn/wp-content/uploads/AbortionSS.pdf
I don’t see anything that hints at a philosophy grounded in the idea that life only has value based on the feelings of those around or reliant or in relationship to that life.
The short version:
- All life is a gift.
- Horror at a society where abortion can seem like the best option due to economic and social realities. And a need to confront these realities as a Church.
- A recognition that there are circumstances where abortion is the best option, including especially in cases where continuing the pregnancy endangers the life and welfare of the mother.
Throughout there’s a real sense of deep respect and honor for the developing life in the womb, and of our deep dependence on one another in a society that disrespects that mutual dependence. I think you’ll like this statement!
It also includes policy ideas that include regulation of abortion as necessary for protecting life, but opposition to legal and logistical barriers for morally justifiable abortions. [I find this section… thin]
The quotations from the books are drawn from the contemporaneous church documents around the time of Roe v Wade, not the ones from the 90s.
In the document linked, I'm not surprised to see less about what makes the baby different from its mother, since the only circumstances for termination the document explicitly blesses are:
-when continuation of a pregnancy presents a clear threat to the physical life of the woman
-when the baby was conceived by rape/serious coercion
-when the baby has a fetal abnormality that makes him or her unlikely to live
Definitely on my TBR list. Does he also discuss the canonization of St. Gianna Beretta Molla?
My understanding is post-Roe the most significant radicalization occurred on the ‘pro-life’ side. Whereas before Roe there was a broad consensus that when a woman’s life was at risk abortion was a necessary procedure, despite the fetus being a life, post-Roe there was a deliberate campaign to venerate mothers who martyred themselves for the unborn. This seems related to what you talk about in the article - the idea that the unborn life should be weighed equally to the mother’s life.
This move from the value of life being incalculable to an embryo weighing equally to a mother beginning at conception was also used to justify the murder of abortion providers and bombing of clinics post Roe.
I think you may have seen a too-brief summary of St. Gianna's life and death:
>Two months into the pregnancy, Gianna was diagnosed with a uterine fibroma (a tumor which is usually benign, meaning non-cancerous, but can contribute to problems during pregnancy). Two of the typical treatments would result in her unborn baby's death—a surgery removing the contents of her uterus, including both the fibroma and her baby (which would have been illicit under Catholic teaching), and a surgery removing her entire uterus including its contents (which would have been licit under Catholic teaching).
>Many retellings of St. Gianna’s story end here, stating that she forwent the treatment entirely and died for her baby. That is inaccurate. St. Gianna chose the third treatment option available to her: a more cautious surgery removing the fibroma but leaving her daughter in utero (which was licit under Catholic teaching).
>This surgery was generally successful, and Gianna’s condition returned to expected after it. But she must have worried that there were more problems to come; as this rainbow pregnancy continued, she told her husband and other family members that if, at any point, anyone had to make a choice between her life and that of the baby, they should choose the baby's. Toward the end of her pregnancy, she went through a medical induction of labor, which was unsuccessful, and eventually gave birth through Cesarean surgery to a healthy baby girl, whom she named after herself.
>After baby Gianna’s birth, things took a turn for the worse. St. Gianna contracted septic peritonitis, a condition that involves complications of an infection of the lining of her abdomen. This likely was caused by bacteria that entered her body during the C-section, that then spread to her bloodstream. The infection took over her body, making her organs dysfunction, and she died a week after giving birth. St. Gianna was not canonized for dying, nor for dying for her child. She was canonized for her heroism in being willing to die for her child. Her death was unrelated to the life of her child. In other words, she could have been heroic and survived.
From here: https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/st-gianna-beretta-molla-a-saint-for-our-times/
Thank you! Appreciate the clarification on these details.
I'm less interested in the particulars of her case (or other cases of women choosing their baby over their own life) and more about the way these narratives are propagated and to what end. And how that has changed over time. Roe was an inflection point for (several) narrative shifts.
Also, I always like to tell people that people become Saints because they love Jesus!