Being raised in a Catholic home, I can remember as a young girl hating the phrase: The Fear of God”.
Starting at a very early age I found myself the victim in numerous situations which for some reason seemed to keep making me the eternal victim and forever target. However, I can say I am grateful that these were never at the hands of those whose job it is to protect me….my family. So if I needed to feel safe I knew I could just go home; and even at 44, my father may be gone and I may have my own children to protect and a husband that protects us all but if I need to feel “safe” I go home.
Yet week after week I sat in my CCD class and would listen so intently about this all loving God and how we were all his children. Then like the flip of a switch all the conditions to this love started to become clear. 10 Commandment…. check. Believe in God…. check. Be a good person… check. Oh and only Christians get into heaven…. WAIT!!!! My friend at school doesn’t go to CCD. No she is Jewish, no heaven for her. But what if…NO!!! But how about…NO!!! So help me you will follow the rules because I will put the fear of God in you. Ok that’s where they lost me. You can’t tell me that we are all God’s children but not my single best friend at school. That didn’t make sense. Plus, if we are his children and church is his home, shouldn’t we feel safe there and why would God want his children to be afraid of him. To try and keep from getting off on my usual rants I will simply say I never had to see the move Spotlight because I was not just a Catholic Girl I was a Boston Catholic Girl right there in the 80s early 90s. Never saw the movie but I could probably fill in the gaps if you have any questions.
I left the Catholic church because I witnessed far too much of this hypocrisy. As I found my true spiritual path I realized that it was never the teaching of Jesus that left me feeling confused, yet those who used them as tool of creating fear. I now know that Jesus, as well as Buddha and Mohammad among others; were all spiritual vessels just trying to pass on their own understanding of the message they were meant to pass on to those people at that time. It took me tears but I knew that there was something greater than myself who understood this whole mess and once I started finding the answers to my questions, everything fell into place.
I have been a true crime junkie since I was about 12 years old. Partly I think for survival. A way to realize that the world is not as rosy as we would like to believe. I have been through far more than any one person should ever go through but through my spirituality I have chosen to be a survivor not a victim and through much understanding have managed to take these experiences and turn them into positive aspect of my life….topic for another time. I have read some horrific novels about serial killers and child abuse survivors and I fall asleep watching ID TV almost every night.
Recently I was told that there was a perfect documentary for me and I had to watch it. But it was so powerful that it is not for binge watching but one episode at a time. Everyone that knows me well enough just chuckled. I am no amateur. It combined my true crime and my fight for my spirituality all in one. Ok I was intrigued. 1st episode a little harsh but nothing I would shy away from until about 10 minutes into the second episode. Its a Netflix series called The Keepers based around the unsolved murder of a Catholic Nun in the 60s. I had to shut it off and couldn’t believe how angry and scared I was. I believed it to be because of the great detail this woman was describing just the first, of what I have been finding, of numerous accounts of abuse; until a few more episodes in. I then realized I was still a survivor. Just as strong as I believed and knew I was. The battle was with the part of me that believe that the strength I found in my spirituality made me a survivor of the Catholic Church; but 30 some odd years later I am still just a victim. Now I go to a doctor once a month who is trying to help me through some non combative PTSD that kind of crept up on me just a few years ago (see we only get what we can handle and when we can handle it. Sometimes we need to save a little work for later while we heal from the last) and I am ok with that because I got this far because I am a fighter and there is still work for me to do. I got this far because my foundation is so strong because I have built it on my spirituality and understanding of purpose. How can I possibly be taken down by the Catholic Church NOW!!! I meditated on it and then again and one more time and I figured it out.
I may have been raised Catholic, and it pained my father that I would not just say I was Catholic once I became an adult and refused to. However, my refusal to say something that I knew I did not believe was a true testament to the fact that I was also raised to be strong, independent and a leader not a follower. I have values and respect and I knew what being a Catholic meant to my father and I would not disrespect him and what he believed in by lying to him. Wouldn’t God know I was lying anyways? But I was raised Catholic and from the start the idea that this was an unsolved murder of a nun was appalling. It ranks up there with children and the elderly. There is an automatic respect the moment you recognize a person as a nun or a priest. You can’t unlearn that kind of respect. That is why the mere words spoken by a single priest could change a little Catholic girls’ life forever. That’s how it stated for me. If the priest told me, it had to be true…..he is a priest.
Maybe I am more sensitive to it, maybe it’s because the United States is predominantly Christian or it could just be that I run and follow blogs where I find myself having to teach Christianity to Christians but the truth is the truth. Christians, and Catholics being extreme offenders I am realizing, are extremely judgmental, hateful and ignorant people when they choose to yell the loudest regarding other faiths without really knowing a whole lot about their own. For centuries you can research battles and massacres and pure hatred begun by Christians in the name of Jesus Christ. The saddest part is the day Jesus was crucified, he never realized that thousands of years later all that he sacrificed for would by some evil people to get away with some heinous acts. At least when any other religious radical carries out a deplorable act, they can pull a verse from their holy text that they have twisted and contorted to fit their evil need. I came to terms with my experience within the church but this new case and new information has just made me realize the true harm that is being done and my experience within the church doesn’t even come close to the ones told in this miniseries. I challenge you to find any phrase in the Bible where Jesus told his disciple to go forth and violate innocent young children and in my name shall they suffer if they tell anyone. I will recant my whole statement and rejoin the Catholic church down the street if you find it. The world is a different place than when even I was young and I can verify that it was scary enough, but we need to stop identifying ourselves and defining ourselves solely by what we chose to believe and live our lives by. That is our relationship with our God and if you don’t think my way is the right way, then I will not meet you on the other side; but we can coexist peacefully while we are here.
It happens to be a spiritual topic and the series regards a Nun and the Archdiocese but hope that if even one person understands what I am saying right now and how the simple way we teach our children to treat other people, good and bad, could not only make their lives better but could keep someone else from ruining All people, no matter what religion they choose to follow, what country they come from, the uniform they wear and no matter what kind of job they have are worthy of our respect. However, none of these factors entitles them to it. Over 30 years later and I still needed time for it to register, even after my own experiences, that the offender the woman on TV was speaking of; who was assaulting her both verbally and physically so maliciously was a PRIEST, still hit me like finding out for the first time that Santa Claus wasn’t real. The world is smaller now. Coexistence is the only answer. Evil can come in any shape or size. It can be a man or a woman. They can be your neighbor or a friend. But pedophiles and sex offenders can hide behind a uniform and badge and yes even the Bible. No one gets a free pass to respect and trust. Children are people too and their age should not require them to deserve owe any less or more of it.
But as a fully sacramented “true” Catholic who has come to realize had to leave a little bit of herself back in that church years ago I have a message to those Christians that seem to yell the lousiest and preach the most about what is wrong with what every other person believes if it does not match your own; and how only a Christian will ever make into your “heaven” ….I say take a step back. Before you try to fix what is wrong with every other belief system out there you need to try and fix your own because it is VERY, VERY BROKEN. Good people are getting hurt and their lives are being ruined because everyone is far too worried about what everyone else is doing so they don’t have to see their own flaws…look around, everyone is a mess…fix yourself…..
