Christine O’Donnell’s Renewed Catholic Faith: A Gift of the Holy Spirit

By Mary Claire Kendall

It was a balmy but blustery day when I met former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell of Delaware—dubbed the “Tea Party darling” in 2010—in Washington, DC, at the Sequoia Restaurant, overlooking the Potomac River.

The gusts of wind forcefully blowing off the Potomac almost made it seem as if the Holy Spirit was providing special effects to complement her poignant story about how she went from “nominal” Catholic to “on fire” evangelical to “passionate über” Catholic.

But then, the Holy Spirit looms very large in this story.

Christine Therese O’Donnell was raised in a big, close-knit Catholic family. However, theirs was a more cultural Catholicism in which her mother, respecting her Italian immigrant parents’ faith, ensured the children attended “catechism classes” and “received all the appropriate sacraments.”  Yet, the family rarely went to Sunday mass and, O’Donnell said, “didn’t even go to Christmas and Easter (services).”

Grandmom Chillano, whom Christine called “very devout,” was a daily communicant and very devoted to Our Lady and would bring Christine to mass with her whenever she could. Grandmom’s rich Catholicism overflowed into a rich family life. Each Christmas Eve, she regaled the family with the “seven fishes feast,” a cherished tradition Christine’s mother religiously honors, spending her birthday each year buying fresh fish at Philadelphia’s Italian Market, then cleaning it in preparation for this big-hearted celebration of the Savior’s birth.

The other source of spiritual nourishment came, ironically, when she would sleep over with her friend Eileen Rooney, who lived two doors up. Eileen’s mother was very Catholic and the condition for staying over, Christine said, was “to go to church with the family the next morning.”  Christine described the Rooney’s as “just very devout but very fun… We had six kids, they had seven kids—all close in age. Need we say more?”

As a child, she also attended the Moorestown Bible Camp one summer.  “It wasn’t something that we attended regularly.”  It didn’t fit with her family’s cultural Catholicism but, she adds, “I had a very real experience with God (there)… a Holy Spirit encounter (which) the Evangelical Church is so good at fostering… it was so real, it made such a real impression with me that it carried me into adulthood.”

“But, my childhood exposure to faith,” she said, “wasn’t a grounding… (or) an understanding”—a deficiency the Church could have mitigated.  For instance, she remembers preparing for confirmation and, while waiting for confession, this risqué girl told her, “you can do anything you want”—just confess it. “And when I went into confession I asked… is this true?  And, the priest just responded, say five Hail Mary’s for your own belief.  So, here I was an eighth grader going (what’s up) and he’s just saying, sinner don’t doubt.”

Without a solid foundation of faith, she was susceptible to the cultural messages.  “By high school, by college, I (was)… enveloped by the rhetoric. And, I was a liberal… (and) thought that to be pro-woman, I must believe… all these myths, all these cultural lies especially on abortion.  And, I was vocally, actively (involved)…”

While at Fairleigh Dickinson University, College at Florham, in Madison, New Jersey in the early 90s, her friend Eileen Rooney asked her during a visit, “Do you know how an abortion is performed?”

Christine responded, “Yes. I was there when my friend had an abortion and… I’m the one who told her to ask (Planned Parenthood, while on the phone with them) if it was a baby. I was kind of proud of that... I’m the one who sought the truth and this is what they said.”

But, Eileen persisted. “If you really want to know the truth about this, you can’t read what I do and you can’t read what the other side says, you have to read the medical journals.”

So Christine went to the city library and started pouring through the literature. The more she read, the more her assumptions were quashed. “I remember just being so horrified about what was written in the medical journals that I just slumped down on the library floor and was like stunned.”

She compares her reaction to that of Adam Sandler’s character in the movie Spanglish, who said “the planet cracked” when he found out his wife was cheating on him.

The consequences were profound.  As O’Donnell explained, “It was like, if I’m wrong about this what else am I wrong about?  And, it’s a very scary feeling when suddenly you’re at this crossroads in your life in college when everything you believe might be wrong… And, that’s what led me to, ‘OK, if there’s a truth about this, there is a truth...’”

That day on the floor of that library, she said, ultimately led her back to her childhood faith.  And, while Eileen’s mother bought Christine a subscription to The Wanderer after she became pro-life, her journey was only just beginning.

In the early nineties, while living in DC, she searched for the truth in the Evangelical Church, hearkening back to her formative experience with Moorestown Bible Church.

But, she said, gradually she found it incompatible with her cultural background. For instance, wine was discouraged and, because she was told it was God’s will to go without it and she “wanted to please God,” she did without.

“It truly was a journey,” she said, which included a move to Los Angeles to work with The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (The SALT), speaking openly on MTV’s “Politically Incorrect,” hosted by Bill Maher, and other shows about sexual practices demeaning to women and displeasing to God.

“Everything I did in the 90s,” she said, “was taken out of context in the 2010 campaign.  I was a confused young adult back then reaching for the truth… this very on fire evangelical (where) everyone that you meet you have to tell about Jesus Christ.”

In the mid 90s, she started spending more time in DC, where the political action was. “Being involved in the pro-life movement, “she said, “you meet people from all walks of faith. And, the Catholics I met didn’t fit with the perception I had of Catholics. They were very godly, very devout, very faithful… not this cult.”

When she socialized with them, she said, “I would experience… that happiness without crossing the line that I had in college (i.e., at decadent parties).  I found that joy that I was looking for… (because they) knew how to find the beauty in life… And, I’d wake up the next morning (thinking), that was a lot of fun.”

Meantime, she continued getting regular invites to appear on CNN, MSNBC and Bill Maher’s show to discuss current issues—a pattern that began when producers discovered her in Houston at the 1992 Republican National Convention.

Then Dr. Peter J. Colosi, who worked across the hall from her at the Catholic Alliance in 1996, started to give her “these beautiful encyclicals from Pope John Paul II… that really articulated the right position.”  

Virtually all her soundbites, she said, were based on the encyclicals. And, the Catholic Catechism, which Colosi gave her to consult in his absence, became “sort of a cheat sheet for a last minute call to go on television.”

As she read all these encyclicals, she realized her own “personal platform” as a conservative was not isolated but was part of a larger, integrated truth beautifully articulated by the popes.  “I began… looking through the lens of Pope John Paul II and his teachings (to)… see that everything is connected…”

“Hungry for more,” she said she began realizing, “when I would go on television in a hostile environment and articulate what the church would say about something, people couldn’t disagree because there was a truth there.”  Encyclicals like Love and Responsibility showed “the church isn’t a prude.”

“Maybe,” she began thinking, “I’m wrong about this Catholic Church.”

Prior to her DC experience, she said, her perception of Catholicism was “based on the actions of men and not (on) the teaching of the Church.”  For instance, “If you wanted good weather, you put a statue of the Blessed Mother in your window.” 

But, “the core teachings of the church,” she said, “(were) very liberating.”

“And, what I discovered was that many Catholics (like herself) don’t know what the Church teaches. So I just fell in love with the Church at that point.”

It was in LA, where she was spending time in her then a bi-coastal existence, that the Holy Spirit sealed the deal. 

She was living in a little Hispanic neighborhood in LA. One day she took a walk and encountered, appropriately enough, the Church of the Holy Spirit, which she described as “this teeny little adobe-style chapel” that would stay open outside of church services, even though it was a bad neighborhood. She started attending mass and “when I was stressed,” she said, “I’d just walk over there, sit in their chapel… just a one room building (and) I just started feeling comfortable.”

Then, one Sunday at mass, the priest, Fr. Elias (now in India), gave this beautiful homily about the Holy Spirit.”

As the gifts were being taken up, “Here I Am Lord” was played—the song that had always played at special and significant moments in her life. 

Kneeling down before the Eucharist, she said she felt somewhat conflicted. So she prayed to God in prayer, “If you make it clear, if there is no doubt where you need me, that’s where I will go.”

After mass, Fr. Elias was shaking everyone’s hand. As she walked out, he stopped and said, “Wait a minute” and “called me out, then shook my hand and said, ‘I’m Father Elias. What is your name?’ I said, ‘I’m Christine.’ He (replied), ‘Christine, God needs you in the Catholic Church.’  I was like ‘Ahh!’ (and) just started crying. And, he (said) “Would you like to come see me at my office this week?’ I (replied), ‘yes.’  And, later, in her meeting with him, he said that God (inspired) him… as he was preaching on the Holy Spirit… and saw me praying in the pew (to) ‘Tell her God needs her in the Catholic Church.’”

When she met with him, she said, “I gave a very long confession,” after which he received her back into the Catholic Church. The next week, ironically, she gave the commencement speech at a Baptist college graduation, where she was  viewed as an evangelical, not a Catholic speaker. 

But then, being a Catholic was a private love affair, for the time being.

Gradually, she let her Catholic friends know—and even one evangelical friend, from whom she was concealing her return to the Church lest it “shock” her. It turns out this friend was poised to convert and wanted to share her own shocking news.

“Truth,” O’Donnell says, “is inscribed on everyone’s heart and one thing I say in political speeches is that they agree with us, they just don’t know it yet. And, we’ve got to figure out how to clearly articulate these truths…”

For instance, regarding the “pursuit of happiness,” she explained, “Pope John Paul II said… happiness is being ‘rooted in love’—not ‘happiness is love,’ it’s the state of being ‘rooted in love.’  It’s through giving and sacrificing and putting the next generation ahead of your own needs… government can’t give this (rootedness) to you, this is something that only God can give you.”

“I’m passionate about this,” she said. “It’s so profoundly clarifying and liberating. By understanding the longing that he put on our heart, you understand why our founders created a limited government in such a way.”

That suggests to her a bridge to politics. “To me it’s so clear cut about the role of the Church in this next election; it’s just trying to articulate to the rest of the (Christian) Church the role that (the Universal Church) play(s).”

While it remains to be seen what Christine O’Donnell’s political future is, one thing’s for sure, she’s winning hearts now.

NOTE: This piece is a companion to the earlier review of Christine O’Donnell’s book Troublemaker, which appeared in March 15 issue of The Wanderer http://www.thewandererpress.com/ee/wandererpress/index.php .  

To obtain a copy of the book, see www.troublemakerbook.com.

“Troublemaker”: A Profile in Class, Character and Lessons Learned

By Mary Claire Kendall

http://us.macmillan.com/troublemaker-1/ChristineODonnell  

On September 14, 2010, the night of her Republican Senate primary win in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell reveals in her book, Troublemaker, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden called her Republican opponent to offer their condolences, affirming her case regarding the “establishment” insider power club.  Over the summer O’Donnell was besting her Democratic opponent in the polls. Voters chose a winner.

Her prospects dimmed in the early, whirlwind days of her general election campaign after the “I’m not a witch” ad went viral within minutes of its release by the New York Times.  “Somehow,” she writes, “this ridiculous commercial had been slipped to the media.” Somehow?

She told her ad maker, Fred Davis, she didn’t like the ad and didn’t want to make it.  And, in what has got to be the biggest lesson learned, she didn’t do what Mitt Romney famously said he likes to do—fire him!  As Mark McKinnon, President George W. Bush’s media consultant said, when asked to comment: “If a candidate can’t control their consultant, they shouldn’t run for office.”  Tough but true, yet seemingly unthinkable. Davis also made ads for Senator John Cornyn, Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But in losing, she won—as she sets forth in this compelling, delightful and inspiring account that tells who she is:  A class act, full of character and heart with a gift for communicating and a deep and abiding belief in the core, foundational principles upon which our nation was founded—rooted in the rights and dignity of man.

Her storytelling powers are impressive. 

The second youngest of six children, Christine Therese O’Donnell was born in 1969 during the summer of Woodstock and the Moon landing, to a family that’s the typical, American melting pot of hardworking immigrants—in her case, Irish, English and Italian. Her paternal grandmother is believed to be descended from the longest living signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Carroll.

Her heart for the underdog shines through early when, at age 6, it was her turn to choose the family Christmas tree. She selected a scrawny little tree she thought no one else would pick.

She also learned forgiveness and survival early on—especially on a family trip to Florida to visit her estranged grandfather. The visit went so well, they were soon packing him up for the trip back north, but forgot 10-year old Christine.  Hours later, upon their return, there she was, busily selling the backyard tree’s residuals.

Her family, she writes, had its struggles. Her father mirroring his father, succumbed to alcoholism but with the love and honesty of his family, was able to dig out of that hole and become, as she writes, the person he was meant to be. 

It was in college that O’Donnell was utterly transformed when a friend educated her about the life of a pre-born baby.  An activist was born.

From that spark, one opportunity led to another—on the 1992 George H.W. Bush campaign, then the RNC, working for Chairman Haley Barbour, then Concerned Women for America, followed by The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, where she recommitted herself to Jesus.

O’Donnell’s growing media presence led to appearances on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect—where she uttered those famous three little words “dabbled in witchcraft” (i.e., dated a guy briefly and read about what he was into). Her role then was connecting with her peers, many of whom more than dabbled. 

Then she started her own Washington-based media consulting business.

About this time, her “Grandmom Chillano” was dying of Alzheimers.  This, she writes, is when she became an adult—taking charge to organize her siblings to share the burden of helping their Grandmom at night.  On her shift, her Grandmom stood up on her bed all tense over being late for her job, putting tags on dresses—her first job.  Christine, as the daytime caregiver counseled her, did not try to contradict her view of reality but rather started singing a song to her—one she remembered singing when she would attend mass with her as a little girl—that calmed her down.

Grandmom Chillano had taught her valuable lessons.  “Class,” she told her “is about character, not money… Doing the right thing and treating others with respect is not something you can buy.”

After O’Donnell moved to Delaware, friends and acquaintances started to see in her a U.S. Senate candidate. First dismissing it out of hand, she soon thought, why not!

In 2006, with little time left, she managed to mount a fairly successful write-in campaign.  In 2008, she won the primary then lost to Senator Joe Biden, who was also running for Vice President. He relinquished his seat only after being sworn in as Vice President. In 2010, she ran, winning the primary and a Romney endorsement—a favor she returned in 2011 by endorsing him; but, she lost the general when the “establishment” carpet bombed her.

In 2011, as she writes beautifully in Chapter 11, she found it in her heart to forgive all the nasty tactics, deployed by even those in her own party!  She had a lot to forgive. 

Before she ran in 2008, she was warned if she did so, she’d be totally destroyed. The day after she announced, she and some family members received audit notices. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  The thuggery continued in 2010. And, predictably, her Democratic opponent, now Senator Chris Coons, twisted her comments, especially those made at the CNN debate, regarding “separation of church and state” and the first amendment.  She sets that record straight, laying out what Thomas Jefferson, who first used the phrase, intended, in contrast to how it’s been perverted; but the media failed to report these facts.

All the dust having settled, she continues to fight the good fight—with the help of her newfound Catholic faith, one thing she does not write about in her book.  (A feature on her faith journey will be published in next week’s edition of The Wanderer.)

Whether she runs again, or finds another avenue for her passion and talent, O’Donnell will continue making a difference in changing hearts. And, isn’t that after all the overarching goal?  For, if you change laws without changing hearts, it’s an incomplete victory.

Originally published in The Wanderer, March 15, 2012 issue

http://www.thewandererpress.com/ee/wandererpress/index.php 

Where are the women?

By Mary Claire Kendall

Carolyn Maloney asking "Where are the women?"
Photo: Evan Vucci / AP | Source: CNN

“What I want to know is, where are the women,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, asked during last week's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA.

The hearing focused on “the administration's actions concerning freedom of conscience” and government-mandated insurance coverage of birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients.

Maloney asked a good question, but for another day and hearing, focused on the topic of women's health. (The Issa hearing essentially dealt with the right to spiritual health for all.)

That it echoes Sen. Gaylord Nelson's January 1970 hearing, which focused on the pill's side effects, makes it all the more poignant.

The Wisconsin Democrat had read “The Doctor's Case Against the Pill” by Barbara Seaman, an author, journalist and main founder of the women's health movement.

In her book, Seaman documented the pill's ill effects, including weight gain, heart ailments, blood clots, depression and decreased sex drive. Few women realized the pill was causing these problems.

No women were asked to testify at Nelson's hearing, even though they were the only ones taking the birth control pill.

But, then the official path to the pill's approval was equally dismissive of women's opinions. As “The Pill,” an American Experience documentary production, reported, “after nine months of testing, the medical director in Puerto Rico told (Dr. Gregory) Pincus that the pill was 100 percent effective when taken properly. Nevertheless, she argued, the drug caused ‘too many side reactions to be generally acceptable.’ Both (Dr. John) Rock and Pincus disagreed. The adverse side effects, they believed, were insignificant.”

For three women participating in the Puerto Rico trials, the side effect was death; but they were never autopsied.

As Alex Sanger, Margaret Sanger's grandson, summed it up, “They probably dismissed it in their mind, ‘Well, there's something wrong with the patient,’ and there was nothing wrong with the pill. They didn't want to hear about what might be wrong because they... just felt so strongly that this pill was necessary for women's well-being.”

But, at the January 1970 hearings, a brave group of women didn’t let the scheduled slate of witnesses keep them from speaking up in what became known as the Boston Tea Party of the women's health movement.

Alice Wolfson, joined by a group of feminists at the hearing, stood up, shouting a litany of questions: “Why is there no pill for men?” “Why are 10 million women being used as guinea pigs?”

“Why had you assured the drug companies that they could testify? Why have you told them that they could get top priority? They're not taking the pills, we are!”

“Who is going to pay the medical bills when a woman develops cancer of the breast and cancer of the uterus?” “We are not just going to sit quietly any longer. You are murdering us for your profit and convenience!”

With the cameras capturing and heightening this historic moment, the hearing was soon adjourned.

As Wolfson told “American Experience,” “we began to hear researcher after researcher—male after male—start saying things about the pill. And then one ... said, ‘fertilizer is to wheat what estrogen is to cancer.’ And I think at that point we practically dropped dead, we were so shocked.”

Only one expert, Dr. Philip Corfman of National Institutes of Health, affirmed that the women's concerns were legitimate. In the late 1980s, Dr. Corfman finally convinced manufacturers to withdraw from the market all oral contraceptive brands that contained more than 50 micrograms of estrogen.

Where, indeed, are the women?

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based writer who was special assistant to the assistant secretary for health under President George H.W. Bush.

Originally published in the Washington Examiner on February 22, 2012 and online on February 21, 2012

Can There Be A Silver Lining?

By Mary Claire Kendall

Every cloud has a silver lining.  In the case of President Barack Obama’s health insurance mandate vis-à-vis contraception, nothing could be truer.

Of course, in our secular world the choice over contraceptive use is a matter of conscience. But, Catholic women, of all women, should have a greater appreciation for and understanding of natural and divine law undergirding the Church’s teaching forbidding artificial birth control, giving them the light and strength to make an informed decision.  Some quip it’s “between them and God;” but, this pat response precisely underscores that they will ultimately be answerable to God for their decision. 

Even worse, many liberal Catholic women want to make it between them and the world.  Karen Finney, for one, huffed on MSNBC on February 13, Catholic women will reason when voting, “Screw that. I don’t want the Bishops telling me what to do.”

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on C-SPAN radio call-in
discussing Obama mandate, a few days after February 9 press conference
featuring then-unknown Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke.

And, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend at a press conference she sponsored with Catholic college students whining they can’t get free contraception, said, as one of 11 children, her mother obviously didn’t have access to contraception either.  Forgive the bluntness, but just whom would she have eliminated?

The whole controversy was whipped up not because the Bishops questioned women’s right to access contraception but because Obama questioned the right to freedom of conscience, guaranteed by the Constitution, when he mandated Catholic-run hospitals, schools, and charities to provide health insurance that covers birth control, abortifacient “morning after pills,” and sterilization—or face multimillion dollar penalties.  (The “compromise” he offered on Friday, February 10, is no solution since many church-affiliated entities will still end up footing the bill for practices the Church knows to be immoral.)

Voters aren’t stupid. They know Obama is modifying and obfuscating his position to get re-elected.  Obama gambled the Church would be forced to accede to popular pressure—including within its own ranks—and lost.  Freedom of conscience—a hallmark of America—should give one the right not to fund birth control, abortifacients, and sterilization, even if those practices are legal.

But, while this relevant legal issue is now being fought out in courts of law, even the moral issue can be a winner in the court of public opinion.  To wit:

Theodore Roosevelt believed, as The American Experience stated, “It was the patriotic duty of every healthy married woman to bear four children.” 

The Anglican Church, like Roman Catholics, considered the use of birth control a grave sin until 1930 when the Lambeth Conference, bowing to popular pressure, allowed it.

Margaret Sanger, who coined the term “birth control,” went to jail many times for breaking the Comstock Law criminalizing sale of contraceptive devices and dissemination of birth control information.   Her first violation of the law occurred in 1914 when she published a pamphlet titled “Family Limitation,” detailing the mechanics of birth control.  In 1916, she opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York; the police shut it down nine days later.

In 1934, Sanger’s allies in Connecticut finally opened a clinic in Hartford, which lasted eleven weeks and, as reported in Liberty and Sexuality by David J. Garrow, imposed the following strict limits to give it an aura of moral acceptability:  “Married, living with husband, at least one child unless physically unfit for pregnancy, physically or economically unable to have another pregnancy at present, and unable to pay for private care.”  Close ally Katherine Hepburn, mother of the actress by the same name, wrongly calculated the family would be the bulwark against promiscuity birth control would encourage.

Sanger stated, as reported by Garrow, birth control “does not mean the interruption of life after conception.” Yet, birth control has paved the way to broad acceptance of abortion and many forms of birth control, including the pill, can prevent implantation of the embryo after conception.

In 1951 when Sanger began exploring the possibility of making a contraceptive pill, the scientific community steered clear of it since they thought it would increase promiscuity.  The Comstock laws were still in force in 30 states. 

In 1969, Barbara Seaman wrote The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill because so many young women on the pill were having strokes and dying or being maimed for life. No one bothered to inquire why three women in the clinical trials in Puerto Rico in 1956 died; they were never autopsied. 

Ninety-eight years after Sanger went to jail for telling the world about contraception, the last thing our country needs is to see the pendulum swing whereby those whose consciences can’t condone birth control are penalized either in a court of law or the court of public opinion.

Originally published in The Wanderer, March 8, 2012 issue