While at home this weekend, my mom drew my attention to an article in our diocesan newspaper, "The Catholic Moment." It was the very last article on the last page of the paper, so hopefully most people missed it, because I was extremely disturbed by what it had to say.

The article was encouraging Catholics to boycott the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the upcoming Race for the Cure in Indianapolis. Why, oh why, would the Catholic Church be speaking out against such an organization, one may ask, just as I did when I initially read the headline. Here’s the answer. Apparently the Komen Foundation gives some funds to Planned Parenthood in order to educate women on breast health and to provide mammograms. However, Planned Parenthood is what was termed in the article “an abortion-committing goliath,” and because the Komen Foundation is giving money to such a terrible organization, even if said evil organization is using the money as designated by the Foundation, for education and prevention of breast cancer, Catholics should no longer support the Komen Foundation.

As a practicing Catholic, I am fully aware of the church’s extreme position on Right to Life issues. However, I believe that this call to boycott an organization that has helped to save many lives, no doubt the lives of many Catholic women, is misguided and exceptionally dogmatic. The Komen Foundation was not giving Planned Parenthood grants to abort babies. It was giving grants so women can be educated and cases of breast cancer could be caught early, increasing women’s chances for survival.

My anger over what I feel is an extreme position by the Church also brought me to think about an issue that came up earlier this week in politics -- the uproar/fallout with the comments made by the minister of Barack Obama’s church in Chicago. The Sunday morning talk shows were all rehashing the week’s events, analyzing Obama’s response and prophesizing about Obama’s political future.

One of the commentators (I forget which one, as so many were talking about it) raised the question about why Obama doesn’t or hadn’t left the church if such things were being said. The question “why does he stay?” also resonates with me. I clearly don’t support what I see at the Catholic Church’s extreme approach to birth control and the silly or offensive things (like the Komen boycott) that result from such a position, or the way the church generally treats women, yet I stay. I know that Obama doesn’t support his minister’s extreme or offensive comments.

Yet he stays. And I stay. I’m saying my prayers in the pews on Sunday mornings. Why do we stay? For me, it’s complicated. I stay because even though I get angry at some of the things the church comes up with and I think they are wrong or silly, the main tenets of the church that I have grown up with all my life, the focus on peace, justice and service to others rise above all the petty stuff in my mind. I can’t speak for Obama, but I think that his reasons for staying are maybe similar. All I can come up with for the issue of faith is complex, and it’s personal.