Pope calls despairing single pregnant mom, offers to baptize her child

(RNS) Of all the novelties that Pope Francis has brought to the Vatican, few have endeared him to the public — and unsettled his aides — as much as his penchant for picking up the phone and calling someone out of the blue.

Now it seems “the cold-call pope,” as he has been dubbed, has done it again: he reportedly called a 35-year Italian woman who had written to him after she became pregnant and was then dumped by her fiance’, who it turned out was married with children of his own. The man also urged the woman to have an abortion.

Instead, Anna Romano wrote in desperation to Francis in July, knowing that he sometimes responds personally to the thousands of people who write to him.

On Tuesday (Sept. 3), Romano’s cell phone rang. It was Rome number she did not recognize but she answered anyway.

“Hello, Anna,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “this is Pope Francis.”

“I was petrified,” she told Il Messaggero, a Rome daily. “I recognized his voice and I knew right away that it really was the pope.”

She again recounted the story that she had written in the letter: how she was divorced with a child already, and was engaged to be married when she discovered in June that she was pregnant. That’s when her fiance’ demanded that she have an abortion.

She told him to get lost and said she was keeping the baby. But she was also feeling desperate, “betrayed, humiliated.” That’s why she wrote to Francis. On the envelope she put: “Holy Father Pope Francis, Vatican City, Rome.” No zip code, nothing else.

It was enough, apparently. The pope called her as informally as “a dear, old friend” would, Romano said, and in their conversation Francis “reassured me, telling me that the baby was a gift from God, a sign of Providence. He told me I would not be left alone.”

When Roman told the pope that she wanted to have the child baptized but was afraid she could not because she is divorced and n her own, the pope told her he was sure that she could find a willing pastor.

Though she doesn’t know whether she will have a girl or a boy, Romano told the newspaper she thinks it’s a boy, and it’s clear what she will name him: “Francis.”

There was no official Vatican confirmation of the story, and in fact the pope’s spokesman on Friday had to deny the claim by a gay man in France that the pontiff had personally called him to reassure him that “your homosexuality doesn’t matter.”

“There is always the risk that people pretend to be the pope over the phone,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi told Le Figaro.

But this latest episode does seem to be in keeping with Francis’ pastoral style.

While archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio famously blasted priests who refused to baptize children born out of wedlock, calling them “today’s hypocrites” who “separate the people of God from salvation.”

Moreover, since becoming pope in March, Francis has regularly used his personal cell phone to reach out beyond the confines of the Vatican.

Right after his election, for example, the pope called his local newsstand to cancel his newspaper subscription, and he also phoned his cobbler back home to ask if he could repair the battered black shoes that Francis favors.

He called an Italian man who has struggled to forgive God after the murder of his brother, and he called an Italian engineering student who wrote to the pope about his fears of not finding work even with his degree. The two “laughed and joked” for eight minutes, the teen said, and Francis told the young man to use the informal “tu” with him.

The pope’s penchant for calling people has become so notable that an Italian humorist recently took to the pages of a leading Italian newspaper with a list of tongue-in-cheek etiquette tips in case Francis calls you:

“Calling him ‘Frankie,’ for instance, would be inappropriate,” Beppe Severgnini wrote.

“Exclaiming ‘Your Holiness!’ is predictable, but getting carried away with appellations such as ‘Your Magnificence’ or ‘Your Megagalacticness’ would be a little grotesque.”

1615 This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the marriage bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand impossible to realize. However, Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear, or too heavy - heavier than the Law of Moses. By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God. It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to "receive" the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ. This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ's cross, the source of all Christian life.

1640 Thus the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by God's fidelity. The Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom.

1631 This is the reason why the Church normally requires that the faithful contract marriage according to the ecclesiastical form. Several reasons converge to explain this requirement:

- Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public liturgy of the Church;

- Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children;

- Since marriage is a state of life in the Church, certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to have witnesses);

- The public character of the consent protects the "I do" once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it.

1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning [he] made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

I guess stoning her would have been more your style.

"Kindly explain, if you will, if you can, how it is just to punish a child for the sin of its parents. "

Are the two of you incapable of understanding the difference between punishment and reward?

This woman is getting world-wide attention (reward) for what she has done.

So not rewarding single mothers is automatically punishment? I guess thats consistent with a dying civilization that sees not giving every kid a trophy "punishment" for failure

Since you have made it abundantly clear that you’re not a Catholic, please allow me to explain this to you. In the view of the Roman Csrholic Church, baptism is not something that is done to make a baby’s parents happy; it is not a reward to the parents; it does not garner attention or money for them. It is a sacrament that confers grace upon the child. Withholding baptism from a child is a petty way of punishing a mother for her sin. It does nothing to deintentivize or deglamorize the sin of fornication. It does not undo the sin. It achieves nothing except to make it more difficult for a penitent Christian woman to raise her child as a Christian. Is that your desire? To have fewer children raised to worship Our Lord and Savior? Because if so, this would be a way to achieve that goal.

Now, that said, I agree with you that it is disastrous to glamorize and incentivize the bearing of children outside of wedlock. But unless you take illegitimate children away from their mothers and raise them in a state orphanage, which presumably you as a conservative would abhor, it’s very hard to think of a way to punish a mother without also punishing her innocent child.

And may I draw your attention to the example Christ have us in speaking to sinful women, both the Samaritan woman who was shacking up with some dude, and the woman taken in adultery. He didn’t harass them or say that their children couldn’t be baptized because they had sinned. He spoke in a compassionate manner, telling the adulterous woman to cut it out and saying to the Samaritan woman that he would give her living waters to drink. Pretty clear examples of how we are to bear ourselves toward other sinners.

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