Posted by:
janeeliot
(
)
Date: February 27, 2019 01:23AM
I dipped into some controversy on the board about whether or not this board should be posting about the scandal in the Catholic Church. I don't know if it is my place to weigh in, but I believe the board should. If anything I wish there were more post -- or perhaps rather different posts.
First of all -- this scandal is a thing. It's not just classic American xenophobic anti-Catholicism. Some watchers believe it might bring down the American Catholic Church as funding and participation are dropping precipitously. Try googling "I am leaving the Catholic Church because of the sex scandal" and you will find a treasure trove of exit stories. I find many of them moving -- wonderful -- and absolutely of interest to people leaving the Mormon Church. These people are talking about being torn up between love and anger, between family and conscience, between a past layered with sweetness and a need to affirm the most basic message of that past by leaving it behind. These are not only great stories for people leaving Mormonism -- they are the great stories of being human -- of a pain and a need for integrity -- even at great cost -- that transcend all religions, societies and times. I find them often in my travels on the net -- and I wish I saw them here more often -- or at all.
"For decades now, friends have asked me why I, a confrontational skeptic, a pro-choice, marching in the streets feminist, could still call myself a Catholic. For the same reason I don't move to Canada, I'd explain. Because if you have any privilege in the world, your moral imperative when you see injustice and corruption is not to flee, but to stay and fight all the harder to make things better. There is an Episcopalian church a few blocks down the street from my Catholic parish. This Sunday, I guess you could say I'm moving to Canada."
https://www.salon.com/2018/08/25/i-quit-the-catholic-church-im-not-giving-up-my-faith-but-im-losing-my-religion/I’m A Lifelong Catholic. Here’s Why I’ve Finally Decided To Leave The Church.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/leaving-catholic-church-sex-abuse_us_5b7d68ace4b0cd327df89ddcThis is possibly my favorite (except for a friend's, and it's my connection to her that makes that special). This is simply brilliantly complex.
"Tenderness and Horror
"I grew up in Scranton’s Catholic diocese, which is now reeling from sex abuse scandals. I don’t know how to process the loss of that spiritual home...And so it’s from both a distance and yet an intense, aching closeness that I watch the Catholic Diocese of Scranton burning. I scroll through Twitter and see hundreds of people I never met writing screeds about “pedo priests,” calling the Roman Catholic Church “demonic,” blaming parents and families for putting their children in the vicinity of men who might abuse them, and acting like any Mass-attending Catholic is a tacit endorser of child abuse. You know, I get it. I see the point. I myself can be quick to snap judgments. I’m inclined to think that anyone who says #AllLivesMatter is a police brutality apologist; that folks who “don’t see color” are casual racists; that folks who “love the sinner, but hate the sin” are homophobes. I, too, can be black-and-white, cut and dried about the complex systemic powers that work to oppress, to silence, to hurt. So this rush to judgment against the church makes sense to me: Some wrongs are unequivocal, and some wrongdoers don’t deserve a chance at penance. But when respondents say “the church” is at fault, they hurl barbs at church members as much as at church administrators—and I don’t know if that’s fair...And we grieve that now. There are things you believe so you can keep on living. Until you can’t, and you need to find some other way to live. Some other way to find your grandmother’s voice in the air. Some other way to sense your childhood. Your family. Catholics in Scranton are not foolish people who threw their children to wolves. They are children of God—a God I don’t even believe in, yet still know to be real—curled into his heartbeat all their lives, connected through him to a lifeline of family, identity, sacred belonging. They trust that sacred belonging, and it is distinct from the Vatican. The church, as a community, is alive and human and separate from the church as an organization. It’s not that they blindly trusted the pope or a priest—they trusted one another; they trusted their communal family. It’s not a thing so easily given up. And despite the fact that vile scandals of child abuse now feel like old news to secular culture writ large, it doesn’t hurt less for us who feel the loss of that spiritual home. The loss of God’s arms. The loss of that place. " If that doesn't make you cry, if that doesn't remind why it can be HARD to leave Mormonism, what is wrong with you?!?
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/09/scranton-catholic-dioceses-sex-abuse-scandals-are-devastating-to-reckon-with-for-those-who-grew-up-there.htmlOther stories are not about leaving, but they underscore that this is NOT the same as abuse in the schools or abuse in the society at large -- and to say so is dismissive, minimizing, and even gaslighting:
"I’m a Catholic priest. I’m ashamed at this abuse crisis.
Structural changes alone won’t fix the church. Our culture must change as well."
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/31/17801204/catholic-church-abuse-scandal-pennsylvania-priestOther see hope of a rebirth in the Catholic Church as it finally loses its hierarchical structure and becomes more democratic, as more people become involved.
But here is the deal -- these stories are told by Catholics -- and I think that is important. I am not aware of anyone who is currently Catholic -- and out -- that is admittedly Catholic, openly Catholic, proudly Catholic posting about it here -- and that makes me uneasy -- for it is their story.
In any case, what is happening is monumental -- and heartbreaking -- and it deserves better than a weak defense of "Other people do it, too," or "Aha! Proof religions are evil!" or sneering accusations that all priests are child rapists -- or even a great deal of intellectualizing.
Because what we have gone through leaving Mormonism deserves better than that, too. Right?
Edited to add a URL I forgot.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2019 01:26AM by janeeliot.