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It’s tough to be a person of faith these days. Not only are people challenged by the happenings in the world but many are feeling betrayed by their faith delivery systems—their churches.
Though it is not necessary to belong to organized religious institutions to be a believer, many people find it helpful for spiritual guidance, interpretation of their chosen ancient teachings, and the camaraderie of other believers in their faith. Many also belong to churches for friendship, support, and safety from the crazy world outside the doors of their churches. (Even though historically and currently churches have been and still are targets of violence by the outside world and sometimes from their own misguided members.)
I know a number of people who are spiritual and strong believers in their chosen faith but do not belong to a church family. The reasons are many but basically they all agree that it’s possible to maintain a spiritual faith-based lifestyle without belonging to an official group. Many people drift in and out of membership to churches depending on other things going on in their lives. Sometimes they look for a particular church and spend time visiting a variety of religious entities trying to find the right fit for them and their families.
For those physically unable to attend church services TV religious shows offer spiritual guidance but many of these shows are just that—-TV “shows.” They often project a greedy and self-righteous aspect of religion unappealing to many. The point is, it’s all up to us what we choose and how we live our lives with or without a church. In some parts of the world throughout history, some of us were not allowed to attend church or declare a belief system without fear of being dragged from our beds and killed. It’s tough to find the right fit.
Each religion has countless divisions within their basic organized structures. Members of one group often deny the existence of other organizations within the umbrella of their entire denomination. People are moving through religious systems constantly in search of one that meets their needs. The variety and quantity of religious texts is staggering and confusing and some feel a church group can help them decipher the endless contradictions and complexities of the texts. And it’s not easy to move on to another church. In some religions leaving a particular group is a trip to hell. Leave the church, go directly to hell, do not pass go. Some leave their religion entirely and begin learning about new church cultures. Christian to Buddhist, Jew to Christian, and so forth. Those folks are usually welcomed with open arms by their new church families and shunned forever by their former church families. Messing with organized religion is scary business. Sit in a group of people from different religions and engage in religious debate and watch the faces turn red and the slurs start flowing. It’s not pretty.
I was born and raised Catholic and come from a long line of Catholics—Portuguese ancestry. My father was an atheist and yet he allowed my Catholic mother to send me to Catholic school and later Catechism when we moved too far away from the school I had been attending. I went through all of the required classes to become an adult Catholic and have posted photographic evidence of my First Communion to the left of this post. Later I was Confirmed and I have documents issued by the Catholic Church verifying I passed all the classes satisfactorily. Yet, I haven’t been to mass in years and years and years. I liked mass and I liked going to Catechism. It’s the dogma/doctrine I grew to dislike and ultimately distrust. I’m currently church-less.
During the time of my life as a Catholic I never once remembered hearing about an incident of abuse with a child. The church we belonged to was small in comparison to city churches and we were all very aware of one another and if it was going on it was a well-kept secret. That’s the problem. It was going on everywhere at CIA level secret-keeping. I have no idea if any of my little friends were molested. No one has come forward from that church but it could still happen as molested children come forward more frequently because the door has been opened by brave people who came before them. It’s all about shame so it’s taken decades for people to come forward.
I look back on my youth in the Catholic Church with fondness and it pains me to know that there are many children who look back on their childhood with horror, horror provided by the very people parents entrusted their sweet young children to. I remember going off to church activities in cute little dresses my grandmother made for me and thoroughly enjoying my time with my Catholic friends and our nuns and priests. Easter in particular is a wonderful Catholic religious holiday as it is in most Christian churches. Most little girls in Catholic school at one time wanted to be a nun. I did until I met one who liked rapping our knuckles with a ruler for the smallest infractions of behavior. Like many Catholic kids we collected funny nun stories and priest stories and I can recall them now quite clearly. So when I do think of a funny story about a nun sometimes I also think of the “kids” who are grown and not reflecting on funny nuns but remembering being molested by priests. My stories enriched my childhood and carried me forward to the way I live my adult life, but molested children’s memories have ruined all aspects of their childhood and they are living their adult lives locked in traps of those memories.
The Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on molesting children. We’ve all heard the stories about teachers, coaches, scout leaders, neighbors, soldiers, babysitters, camp counselors, daycare centers, parents, neighbors, relatives, bandleaders, boyfriends, stepfathers, doctors, dentists, real fathers, older kids, strangers, and the list goes on. It’s a societal issue and though we have evolved in many ways over our history we still have child molestation, child slavery for the sex trade, child kidnappings and murder for sex, and many other horrific exploitations of children. There are countless organizations including police organizations that spend every day looking for the molesters and abusers of children. It must be daunting work and fraught with nightmares when they encounter people who are hurting children.
When the question arises of why Catholics don't just quit and go to other churches it must be known that in the Catholic Church that’s akin to no religion at all. The major problem with Catholics leaving the church is the loss of receiving the Holy Eucharist (communion) by a priest. Communion occurs in a variety of ways in many other churches but Catholics have an attachment to it that is almost impossible to break because it is connected to the priest who we are taught is a direct ordained link to God. It’s not an easy decision to leave the Catholic Church. Especially after a lifetime.
Instead many Catholics are working hard from within to change the church and to encourage the Vatican to deal with the molesters harshly and announce to the world that child molesters are not going to be part of the Catholic culture. In fact, many not only want the priests to be fired from their positions but to be criminally prosecuted and excommunicated. And why not? People who molest children outside of the Catholic Church are prosecuted and sent to prison. If the Vatican took a hard-line approach to the handling of their molesters they might find many people returning to Catholicism, not leaving in droves. Instead they are putting their membership investment in poor, uneducated and slowly developing cultures as a way to boost parishioners and they are essentially ignoring the agony of their current flock and former flock members. Priests are leaving too. And if a young man contemplates a life of devotion to his faith by becoming a priest it must be a tough decision today. Years ago families were so proud to have one of their young men choose the priesthood. Today I suspect they try to talk them out of it.
Some believe the reason the Pope is not bearing down on priest molesters is because the problem is even larger than we have all been led to believe. Though we are hearing of these cases on a huge scale via today’s media there are still cases we may never hear about for a variety of reasons. Some of the molesters themselves as well as those who have protected the molesters now hold lofty positions within the church. And it isn’t a modern problem. It’s been going on a while. It’s been going on forever in every culture and some cultures have been designed to hide it from civilized society. Religion is all about mystery and ritual and doing things on faith without question.
Like I said earlier, the Catholic Church is swathed in CIA style secrecy. The last few days they have become defensive of the attacks against them. Instead of rallying around the victims and condemning the practice and apologizing (over and over) and vigorously going after the perpetrators they are instead protecting the Pope and complaining about the world attacking him. One even said it was inappropriate to attack the Catholic Church on this particular special Easter weekend. I say what better weekend to protect the souls of the mistreated and abused than Easter, a day that binds all Christians like no other day.
The Pope could be the hero of Catholics and the faithful everywhere by cleaning his house thoroughly and purging the evil men from within. Not only would he be a hero to his faith but also he would shake the foundations of all other entities that allow molesters to live among them. If the Pope went after these criminals he would help children throughout the entire world, Catholic or not. He would send a message that no one will ever be safe from prosecution if they harm a child. An act of bravery of that magnitude would perhaps provide the push we have needed for centuries. It’s abhorrent to abuse children and we need a leader to help us get rid of the abusers.
There once was a leader who did save his people and in the end he died for them. We need another one just like him to protect our children. Who will it be?
Happy Easter.
www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com
Each week in this spot I will report an instance of good customer service (if any) but without embellishment. Just a business that knows how to treat customers:
This week I received excellent customer service from:
Kaiser Permanente, Santa Rosa
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