From the St. Louis Review:
The Archdiocese of St. Louis is launching a new ministry to reach out to men affected by abortion.
Project Joseph will provide free, confidential professional counseling, spiritual direction and retreats for men who either have been directly involved in an abortion experience, or affected by a loved one’s previous abortion experience. The first daylong retreat will take place in St. Louis next month.
Project Joseph is being coordinated by the archdiocesan Respect Life Apostolate, in cooperation with the permanent deacons of the archdiocese.
Read the rest here.
This is absolutely wonderful news! What the healing ministries such as Lumina, Project Rachel, Rachel’s Vineyard, and others have done for post-abortive women, I believe Project Joseph will do for men. There is a whole story not yet told about men that is soon to be revealed through project Joseph, and that is the tender hearts of men. I’ve known many men who panicked when their girlfriends became pregnant and lived to regret, deeply regret, pushing them into abortion. They eat their hearts out and suffer mostly in silence.
For men and women both, guilt and shame borne in silence begins to leak out sideways through failed relationships, drugs, alcohol, depression, violence, and often, suicide. These healing ministries are vital to men and women in helping them with a framework for mourning the death of their children, for mourning lost motherhood and fatherhood, for coming home to God and accepting His love, mercy, and forgiveness. They open the way to reclaiming lost and battered dignity, and help people to LIVE, fully live life for the first time in a long time.
The loss of a baby is only the first of many, many losses for the parents. May God, through the intercession of the Holy Family-Jesus, Mary and Joseph, abundantly bless this new ministry and all who call upon Him through it. And may its success spread like wildfire!
UPDATE: Many thanks to Theresa Bonopartis of Lumina for reminding me that Lumina has been reaching out to men with programming for three years, and to Martha Shuping, M.D. for reminding me that Rachel’s Vineyard has been ministering to men as well for some time now. Dr. Shuping’s book, The Four Steps to Healing (A must read!) is listed on the side bar under “Essential Books”. Lumina (along with the other healing ministries) is listed on the side bar “Healing Post-Abortion”. Please see both of their comments below, for more info. I think that I’ll now have two panels in the side bar for Healing Post-Abortion– one for women and one for men. How wonderful that men’s resources have grown that much. Many thanks to Dr. Shuping and to Theresa Bonopartis for your life’s dedication to healing post-abortive women and men.
UPDATE #2: Speaking today with the folks at Project Joseph, they tell me that the retreats are based upon the Entering Caanan model developed by Theresa Bonopartis and the Sisters of Life Community. Way to go Theresa!
.
.
.H/T Deacon Greg Kandra
That is great to see this initiative for men. It’s good to realize that men throughout the U.S. already have access to the Rachel’s Vineyard retreats which are already widely available.
Although Rachel’s Vineyard was originally started for women, over time men started requesting to attend, and have reported great benefit. In some cases, a man may request to attend the retreat as an individual, and in other cases a man may attend a retreat with his wife. Sometimes the couple has had the abortion together, and it is important to them to be able to grieve and heal together, while at other times men who were not involved in the abortion come to be a support to their wife.
Although typically the majority who attend a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat are women, men are definitely welcome, and the experience has been that men and women help each other to heal. It can be very helpful to women to see a man grieve and share in their loss, while the man benefits from the support and insights of women, and particularly so if he no longer has contact with the mother of his baby.
One couple who attended together had grieved separately through the years wihtout being able to discuss their loss. “If he loved me, why did he let me do this?” “If she loves me, why is she aborting our baby?” They each carried their separate grief and anger until, now grandparents, they were able to discuss and share their feelings on a retreat together, and share together in a Memorial for the baby they had lost. It was very healing for this couple whose abortion had been 25 or 30 years ago.
In the feedback that is obtained at the end of each retreat, men report having similar beneft to what women experience. The Rachel’s Vineyard retreat is one of the best means of resolving issues from a past abortion, helping to resolve many emotional and spiritual issues.
There are retreat teams at numerous U.S. locations, as well as many locations in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and growing numbers of teams in Asia and Africa, for a total of 600 retreats a year. Wherever you live, whenever you are ready to deal with this loss, a Rachel’s Vineyard team is waiting to welcome you.
Some men say that a “men only” program is needed and helpful since men may have additional issues related to porn or promiscuity that they feel cannot be discussed in a retreat with women, and for some men there may be a need to go beyond what is offered in the Friday – Sunday Rachel’s Vineyard program.
However, the Rachel’s VIneyard is life changing for any man or woman to help find peace and healing and it is a step that anyone can take wherever you are located. The Rachel’s Vineyard retreat manual is approved by the Catholic Church and has an Impramatur, but there is also an interdenominational manual that has been published for use by any Christians, and there are retreats available that are sponsored by groups other than Catholic.
There are also books and resources available for men, such as the workbook for men offered by SaveOne which is similar to their women’s Bible Study, available through http://www.saveone.org
Martha Shuping
Hi Gerard
So happy to hear this about St Louis! While I know that it is good to bring women and men together at some point, I it is so important for men to have their own place to share and grieve.
Not sure if you knew but Lumina has been doing men’s days for over 3 years now.
Rev Mariusz Koch, CFR began the days with Lumina and it has been growing steadily the past few years. The day never fails to move all there. As Fr Mariusz said after the last retreat “I do not know what else God was doing today but whatever it was nothing could have beat this!”
Here is a link to our men’s section and new flyer.
http://www.postabortionhelp.org/Men/men.html
Our next men’s day is October 9th!
I think this is actually a really great idea, and you are probably surprised to hear me of all people say that. But I know firsthand from my own experience that men can deeply mourn their unborn, even in situations when women don’t.
I also think the pro-choice side does a rotten job of helping the people who made the wrong choice. Granted, I know that the pro-life side thinks that abortion is ALWAYS the wrong choice, but those who believe that it can be the right choice don’t always admit that sometimes it isn’t.
L.,
You’re beautiful🙂
I actually just found out that St Louis is actually using our “Entering Canaan” mens model for their days…praise God!
Yes, I added that update to the article already! I left a message for you at the office Theresa. If you get a chance, I’d love to chat for a moment.
God Bless.
I think this is quite wonderful!
Many times women think that men don’t care or that because they may not emote publicly that they don’t feel the loss.
We know that is wrong. Men suffer terribly from abortion too.
I often think that they are vulnerable in a way women are not. They might have advocated for their child to live but in the end are really quite powerless. The doctors and the law are on the side of the woman – always.
It’s another good reason to remain chaste before marriage. I know of several men who have admitted to being very promiscuous before they married and now are greatly troubled about whether the women they were with ever had an abortion.
will give you a call tomorrow.
Although the men’s is based on our women’s day, the men’s day was actually developed by Fr MArisuz, CFR, myself and Fr George Stewart who is pastor of St Brendans Church in the Bronx and worked with me for many years in post abortion.
The 3 of us really saw a need for men to have their own place to heal and so we got together and developed a day separate from what I do with the sisters. Although the basic premise is the same the day has added aspects specifically geared to men.
The men who come have a wide range of experiences from pressuring someone, to not wanting abortion, to being married to post abortive women. It is great for them to be able to share honestly with one another and express their feelings.
Anyone interested it in can give me a call at Lumina ( 877-586-4621)and I would be happy to pass it on….
Thanks for those updates, Gerard. I think that there are several reasons that men’s needs have not been as visible for a long time.
Abortion was originally framed by feminsts as a “women’s issue,” and in the early 1970’s, I was immersed in “women’s studies” courses at the university I attended, and in fact, in the very early days after Roe, I worked at a clinic that helped to facilitate women being able to access abortions. The thinking of abortion advocates was that this is a “women’s issue” and it does not concern anyone other than the woman.
That’s clearly not true–there is always a man and a woman involved who have feelings about the baby and the pregnancy situation, and there are families as well. But it was framed as the woman’s private decision.
Then, of course, the research that followed was focused on the women–I believe in part fueled by a desire to show, “See, these women turned out okay, no problems here.” It was the women’s problem, a woman’s solution, and now let’s show there was no harm done – or let’s see the results of this choice. So, research focused on the women because of this perspective.
Also, it was easier to do research involving women rather than men, since theoretically one can determine who had an abortion and who didn’t, using medical records or other means. For men, it’s much harder to tell who had an abortion and who didn’t–sometimes the man doesn’t know whether or not a pregnancy occurred, and if there was a pregnancy he knew about, he may not have known about the final decision if the relationship had ended at that time. And you certainly can’t find out through the man’s medical records. So the research over the past several decades has focused on women, not men. That doesn’t mean men don’t have the problems, but we have much less data on the problems that men experience compared to what we know about women’s experience.
In any case, it’s good that more and more men are coming forward to receive help that they need for unresolved abortion issues, and good that more and more programs are being created to help deal with men’s needs. And the more this is talked about, the more awareness is created, and the more people are helped.
My recollection is that Rachel’s Vineyard has been helping men for the past 10 years or so. The first time I included a man on a retreat I conducted, it was still a very new thing and I was among the first, if not the very first, to have done so. But it went so well with mutual benefit for the man and the women, that this has been accepted throughout Rachel’s Vineyard, though consistently more women than men are served in Rachel’s Vineyard which was originally developed for women.
It’s very good to see the men’s-only programs, so that there a range of options available. Save One does have both a men’s and women’s workbook as I mentioned, and also has separate support groups for men and for women. I think the Save One workbook or support group could be a good follow up for someone who has already done “Entering Canaan,” if an individual feels that anything additional is needed.
In some of the abortion recovery ministries I have worked with, more than one model is utilized. For example, I’m on the board of directors for PATH in Atlanta, and they do the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat several times a year, but in betwen they offer the Bible Study “Forgiven and Set Free.” This way, there is always something available and no one has to wait, but the two problems also can be complementary–many people do both with benefit. Sometimes one program fills in a gap that another program did not fully address for a given person.
I absolutely agree, there are some issues that men can process better in a men’s only group, even though I see great benefit in having options that include men and women together, and options that allow a couple to grieve and share together.
Thanks for mentioning my book, The Four Steps to Healing. In that book, I include four key issues that must be addressed in the healing process for most people to heal completely, and in most cases the successful abortion recovery programs all cover these issues. Sometimes if one issue is not sufficiently dealt with in a particular group, a different opportunity, whether indivdual counseling, a support group or something else, will help a person to process that remiaining issue. Good that many options are increasingly available.
Sorry, one thing I said may have given an incorrect impression. The “Forgiven and Set Free” Bible study is a very widely used Bible study for women, so the group I mentioned above is actually for women, but I used that as an example of people sometimes using (and benefitting from) two models, in the case of PATH, a weekly support group for women and then the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat that includes men and women.
Forgiven and Set Free does have a companion study just for men, Healing a Father’s Heart. These Bible studies can be done alone at home, but probably are best utilized in a weekly support group format, or sometimes in the form of a weekend retreat.
Forgiven and Set Free/Healing a Father’s Heart, and also Save One (with men’s groups and men’s workbooks as well as women’s groups and women’s workbooks) are intended to be non-denominational. However, for Catholic men and women, it is great to have programs that are explicitly Catholic such as Entering Canaan.
The Rachel’s Vineyard retreat originated in a Catholic format with an Imprimatur, but is also available in an interdenominational edition which is used by Protestant groups and nondenominational Christian organizations (for example, a pregnancy care center could be a sponsor of a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat using the interdenominational manual).