At what point do Catholics who embrace the distinctive dignity and duty of motherhood recognize that a particular mother is desperately needed at home? I say this in all seriousness without a dash of politics. Gov. Sarah Palin’s four-month-old son, Trig, has Down Syndrome. Now, her seventeen year old daughter, Bristol, is unwed and pregnant. Should Gov. Palin be out campaigning? Should she be at home where there are some difficult circumstances facing her family? If, as Catholics, we take family to be foundational to social and political life, and we take motherhood to express just what Pope John Paul II claims it does, then can we really support whole-heartedly Gov. Palin’s V.P. bid knowing that she cannot be fully available to her family when that family seems to need its mother the most? What would you do? Whatever may be your reply, the current situation certainly frames the question of the importance of family in both universal and particular terms.
N.B.: I intend this post to focus on the question of family obligations and the meaning of motherhood. I do not want partisan mudslinging in the comments.
UPDATE: Gov. Palin’s husband, Todd, was arrested in 1984 for a DWI. This, to me, is not a big deal, so I ask that we keep it off the blog from this point on.
UPDATE 2: Several comments attempted to push this discussion into partisanship, something I specifically requested not to occur. Those comments have been deleted. I once more ask that comments address the specific question. “Yes,” “no,” and “none of your business” along with why are appropriate.
UPDATE 3: Comments are closed. Too many comments were partisan and ad hominum circumstantial. I want to clean things up a bit at Vox Nova. Call it censorship, call it what you like. My thanks to those who actually addressed the questions I asked. There is quite a bit of disagreement, as the comment thread shows.
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