After painful inner examination, I have to say goodbye to the church that I joined less than ten years ago. I took a long time deciding to join the church, due to it's stance on abortion, but finally decided that there was much to like about the church, and that I would feel welcome there. Pope John Paul II had done much to make the church more appealing to me, so with my children still young, I joined in order for them to be raised in the Catholic Church, much as my husband had been.
The perish I joined, and that my husband and sons transferred to, was active and vibrant, and socially progressive. They were planning to build a new church (it has since been completed), and had many different groups to meet the various interests of the parishioners.
In the interests of disclosure, I will say that while I tried to be a "good" Catholic, most of the time since I joined I fell short of being that "good" Catholic.
This diary is about my personal questioning of the Church, and therefore should not be taken as a general diary about the problems now facing the church, but just as one example of what those problems might mean to the church.
In the years since I converted, I've seen them take harder stances on abortion, and now lately health care in this country, and watched all the news about the lack of action when confronted by the realities of abuse by the priests of the church. I'm tired of reading about how I should no longer receive communion because of my beliefs on abortion and birth control. And now, there is mounting evidence that the Pope himself has looked the other way with regard to the sexual abuse of children?
The latest sexual abuse cases have finally broken through to me. When I read this article, I could no longer look the other way myself, but had to face the fact that I too, was helping to support the continuation of this cover-up if I continued to support the Church. My faith in Christ does not allow me to continue to have faith in the Catholic Church. Here is some of the more grievous information that I have read about in the above article.
But now preoccupation is mounting in the Vatican as the growing sex abuse scandal in Germany has directly touched the Pope through his brother, Ratzinger.
Senior officials in the Roman Curia are now worried, as the Italian daily La Repubblica reported on Wednesday, that the scandal will eventually reach the Pope himself and put into question whether — and how much — he knew of abuse cases during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1981.
One of the paragraphs that got my attention was ...
Ratzinger admitted to slapping some pupils early in his career but said that he "always had a troubled conscience about it" and "was happy when physical punishments were completely forbidden in 1980 by legislation." In the Vatican, church officials — speaking on condition of anonymity, as is the norm — showed appreciation for the openness shown by the Pope's brother but questioned the timing and content of his admissions.
And this paragraph really bothered me ...
More cases of abuses seem also bound to come up at the Domspatzen Choir. The director and composer Franz Wittenbrink, who lived in the choir preparatory school until 1967, told Der Spiegel magazine that an "elaborate system of sadistic punishments combined with sexual lust" was in place in the school. He said the headmaster at the time "would choose two or three of us boys in the dormitories in the evenings and take them to his flat. Everyone knew about it." He added, "I find it inexplicable that the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, who had been cathedral bandmaster since 1964, apparently knew nothing about it."
There is so much in this story that I have a problem with. First, the Pope's brother admits to slapping pupils. Note the plural "pupals". He says his conscience bothered him, but he did it more than once. Why?
Second, the pope was bishop when this was occurring, and yet he supposedly had no knowledge of the problem? That seems incredible to me. While it hasn't been proved otherwise, I can no longer believe that the Pope wasn't aware of the sexual abuse problem in his own area.
Third, the description of what was happening at the school just turns my stomach. The thought that this is just one example of what has been happening to children entrusted to the church makes me sick.
I am sorry that I chose to overlook the many cases that have been reported over the last twenty years because of my religious faith. The fact that the church doesn't seem to have yet reached the same conclusion makes me sad, and I realize I can no longer support the church.
Fourth, the article quotes the church spokesmen as saying that the church is now being transparent in the scandal. With all of the actions that have occurred with the transferring of priests and the work to actively hide the fact of abuse from parishioners, I can't quite believe that the church is being transparent now. They should be asking for people to come forward with all information on abuse, not just for this one situation.
And it's not just the topic of abuse that has caused me to rethink my belief in the Church, but also the belief of the church that homosexuality is wrong and that women have no place in the priesthood. Where in the bible do these beliefs come from? Nowhere, and I can no longer look at the Pope as someone who is at least extremely holy, let alone infallible.
With the information that the Pope encouraged the church to hide priests that were abusing children, there can be no faith that the Pope is acting in the best interests of the people of the church.
It's very hard for me today to not be at the Good Friday services, which were always the most heartfelt of the Catholic services for me. But I can't stand the hypocrisy of the church any more. There is no other Good Friday service quite like the Catholic ceremony, so I won't be attending a service today. I will attend an Easter sunrise service at another local church on Easter, as I haven't abandoned my belief in Christianity, just the Catholic Church.
It's time for me to say goodbye. I'm going to miss the ceremonies of the Church, as they are like no other, and were very important to me. But I can't continue to give money to a church that in so many way opposes so many of my core values.
If you have made it all the way through this diary, thank you for putting up with this. I in no way expect everyone to appreciate this, or to follow the same path. This path is my own, and the diary just the way I'm choosing to make the goodbye more concrete and complete.