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Inspired by St. Gianna
| Friday, Jun 2 2006 5:35 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jun 2 2006 5:39 PM
A pregnant woman needing a place to live in Bakersfield may soon find it at St. Gianna's Maternity Home.
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But which one? As a Catholic group searches central Bakersfield for a home to rent for pregnant women in crisis, a Santa Maria woman is planning to open her own Catholic maternity home across from Bakersfield College.
Both will be called St. Gianna's Maternity Home.
"If not for me they wouldn't even know who St. Gianna was," Amanda Fimbres-Baeza said of organizers of the central Bakersfield St. Gianna's. "Basically they took all my ideas and inspiration and used that to create their own maternity home."
In November, Fimbres-Baeza, 40, brought the idea of a St. Gianna's maternity home to the Rev. Craig Harrison of St. Francis of Assisi Church, where Baeza is a member. Harrison was excited.
A five-member board of directors, which included Fimbres-Baeza, was formed. But Fimbres-Baeza didn't like their vision and left the board.
Her departure didn't stop the board's momentum.
"Our goal is to be up and running this summer," said Harrison, who emphasized that the maternity home project is separate from St. Francis of Assisi Church. "We've had a lot of support."
Fimbres-Baeza, by contrast, is struggling. As of mid-May, she had collected $200 in donations.
"It would have been a lot easier if I stuck with St. Francis, because they have it together," Fimbres-Baeza said. "They snap their fingers and it's done.
"But if God be for me," she said, "who can be against me?"
In Bakersfield there are about 20 homes for women in crisis. However, many do not offer a good environment for financially strapped pregnant women, said Terri Palmquist, co-founder of the anti-abortion ministry LifeSavers. That's because many are co-ed, charge fees and mix pregnant women with people needing help for other reasons, she said.
All the more reason to establish a local maternity home. "If the two could come together, it would be a lot better," Palmquist said of the controversy.
Over the years, perhaps the best-known local maternity organization has been Aunt Cherie's Home. Last summer, Fimbres-Baeza and her husband bought the building Aunt Cherie's was housed in as an investment. (Aunt Cherie's continues as a telephone counseling outreach for pregnant women.)
At the time, Fimbres-Baeza had no intention of opening a maternity home and no interest in pregnant women who had no place to live.
Her change of heart began when she watched a special about St. Gianna on a Catholic TV network.
Gianna Beretta Molla was a wife, mother and doctor who died in child birth in 1962. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 2004 and has become the unofficial patron saint of the anti-abortion movement.
In April, the Society of St. Gianna Beretta Molla visited Fimbres-Baeza's maternity home and St. Francis of Assisi Church. People lined up to see a Mass vestment partly made from fabric from Gianna's wedding dress, and touch the saint's black gloves while praying to her for healing, conception or some other need or desire.
"God is working through this saint, working through these relics," society President Jim Buffler said at Fimbres-Baeza's event.
St. Gianna's is the name of choice for Catholic maternity homes. Several already exist across the country. And none, including the two St. Gianna's slated for Bakersfield, has sole legal claim to the name. So there won't be an ugly legal battle between the Bakersfield homes for the nonprofit appellation.
Andrew Rawicki, a St. Francis member and the board president of St. Gianna's Maternity Home, said the board wanted its home in Fimbres-Baeza's building, but her monthly rent, $3,500, was too expensive. The group is looking for a structure to rent within their budget of about $1,200 a month.
Meanwhile, Fimbres-Baeza is looking for donations to open her home and help pay her approximately $3,500-a-month mortgage.
Fimbres-Baeza's reasons for the split seem minor. She wants a home financially supported by the community, not just by a Catholic parish. She wants the house mother to be a nun wearing a traditional habit, but she said board members were against a nun having to wear that type of clothing.
Yet her determination goes deeper than the surface differences with Rawicki's board.
"My vision is from the Holy Spirit," Fimbres-Baeza said. And of St. Gianna? "She has changed my life."