A Crisis of Faith

Warning: I am going to get serious here. Very serious about the problems I have with the Catholic Church's exclusively male leadership. This is one of those times where if you can't stand the heat, you need to get the hell out of my kitchen. Because I am turning up the heat right now. If you are Catholic and cannot separate your faith and belief in the basic teachings of the Catholic Church from the actions of its leaders, I urge you to try to start understanding this very basic fact. Because by developing that understanding, you can start to stop the evil that has been and is being perpetuated by some of these men. And no, this time, I'm not going to give you an alternative place to go. I am that serious about this. 

I am a Catholic. I've been part of the Catholic Church since I was conceived, what I call a cradle Catholic. Born to Catholic parents and baptized as soon as possible into the Church. I grew up in a small town where I was taught by the nuns in the public school after the Supreme Court decision in the early 1960s that banned prayer in public schools. How did the school and the town get away with it? Almost every single person in the little town of 500 people was Catholic. Who was going to complain that the first class of the day was catechism?

I was married in the Church, baptized my children in the Catholic faith, sent them to Catholic schools from kindergarten to 12th grade and, in the case of two of them, to Catholic universities. The youngest is currently in her senior year at one of those universities. Last April, I dressed my first grandchild in an over 100 year old christening gown that has been used in my family for generations and saw her baptized into the Catholic Church.

But for the last few years, my anger at the exclusively male hierarchy of the Catholic Church has been steadily growing as more and more reports surfaced of priests raping children and having their crimes covered up by their superiors (and yes, that is EXACTLY what has been happening), the refusal of these same priests, bishops and popes to see reason and sanction methods of birth control that actually work, and the continual whining (sorry, I'm calling this as I see it) about the lack of priests when they refuse to open up ordination to the priesthood to women and those who are married. Not to mention the whining that occurs when someone likes me dares to say that something is rotten in the Vatican. Let me make something clear here. I am not attacking Catholicism. I am taking the grown men who make up the extensive bureaucracy of Catholicism to task and insisting that if they insist on being considered holy men, that they actually try to be holy.

Now, before my devout Catholic friends and readers start screaming, let me make something perfectly clear: I still believe in the basic beliefs of the church. I hold by the creed. My issue is solely with the humans who are running my church into the ground. I don't have a problem with God. I have a problem with the oh so human management of His Church.

I have never been one to automatically rever any member of any religious order, male or female, simply because they are in holy orders. And I taught my children that they should never assume that a religious is a holy person simply because they are a religious. I've always maintained that those in religious orders must earn my respect just the same as any other person on this planet. I think a lot of this is because of the experience I had with the nun who taught me in second grade. No, she did not physically abuse me. She did make my life a living hell at a time when I was mourning the death of my father and trying to cope with the changes in my young life. All because she was miserable herself, having been assigned to teach 2nd graders (an assignment she loathed) after she had shot her mouth off to her superiors. Believe me when I say the children in that class were the ones who served that particular punishment.

Unfortunately too many people, and not just Catholics, believe that instant holiness is endowed upon any person in the service of God. They fail to separate their belief and respect for the 'Church' from the very frail humans who serve the Church. And way too many priests believe that the taking of holy orders automatically entitles them to instant respect and obedience from their parishioners. My children may have been slightly appalled that I would blow up about the latest pronouncements of our parish priest that I didn't agree with, but they also knew that if ANY religious or lay person associated with the Church, up to and including the Pope, tried anything inappropriate with them, I was going after that person and would make sure they never did it again to anyone. It was (and is) my job to protect my children and they know I would do exactly that for them.

So that brings us to today and my personal crisis of faith. I am increasingly disenchanted with my church. More and more, I find that the people who run it are not people of love, understanding and forgiveness, but people who are more interested in protecting their power base than serving and protecting their flock. I am increasingly frustrated by the fact that the men who are at the top of the heap will do whatever it takes to hide the wrongdoing of their employees. I am beyond angry over the innocent children who have been victimized by predator priests, who far too often when their crimes came to light, were simply shuffled off to a new parish to prey on new victims. I am angry at the priests who know better, but refuse to speak out against their superiors who have covered up these crimes. I am frustrated with men who do not think it's a sin to bear a child you cannot  support or take care of properly into an overpopulated world when there are reliable methods of birth control available. (And for the record, I do oppose abortion.) And I am angry at those who are trying to shut down the work with the poor and dispossessed that religious women have been doing, saying that these same religious women are rebelling against the Church's teachings and must toe the line or else. In other words, if you are a woman in the service of the Catholic Church, you are a second class citizen and you better get over it now or you'll be forced out. And from my view, that is not acceptable. It is past time for women to be relegated to second class citizen status in the Church we have supported for so many centuries. It is time for women to be equal partners in the Catholic Church hierarchy.

In recent months, I've come to realize that I have a decision to make: Do I leave this Church for one that is more in line with my feelings about how humans should treat each other or do I stay, a discontented member of a troubled organization? But then as I was walking through the school where I work, I saw a poster to recruit students to join the campus ministry organization. It used the overused WWJD (what would Jesus do) abbreviation. And that started me thinking. What would He do? Would He abandon the victims of the predator priests? Would He stay silent over the women who serve Him being told they are in rebellion, when all they are trying to do is to improve the lot of the poor? And the answer was no. He would not.

So, I'm going to start speaking out. And it starts here. I am not going to be chased out of my Church by a bunch of evil, small-minded men who believe they are God's gift so to speak. And no, I don't think all priests are evil or small-minded. But far too many are. Far too many only care for the fact that they gain power and respect upon ordination, not a sacred trust to guide and protect those in their care.

For years now, I have been raising my voice in song to worship God. But now, in addition to singing to God, I will be doing my very small part by speaking out about the need to fix the problems I see in the leadership of the Catholic church. I fully realize that I may make no difference at all in the greater scheme of things. But to keep silent is to tacitly agree with the policies being made that I so fervently think are wrong and in some cases, just plain evil. I may be a tiny voice in the wilderness, but I will be a voice.

Things That Make Me Smile

• My granddaughter Luci.
• Watching my neighbors walk their two little girls to school each morning in their STM uniforms, just like we used to walk my daughters to school.
• Commune member Sally, who came up with the hilarious idea to give my husband '60 beers for 60 years' for his birthday.
• Weaving on my loom.
• Thinking about weaving on my loom
• The pictures my sister Mary Claire sends me of her hair growing in.
• Talking on Sykpe with my daughters (Sara, it's your turn please)
• Seeing one of Sara's former classmates walking into the the teachers' lounge at the school now that she's teaching there for six weeks as a sub.
• Work. Yes, work. Seriously.

More later. In the meantime, think of me smiling.

Out of the Deep Fryer and into the Fire

Hold on...just a minute...where is that damn thing? Oh, there it is. Be right back.


Okay, got it. Had to find my soapbox and drag it out of storage. Yes, it's time for me to climb up on it again. But this won't take long. In the meantime, if you'd really rather not listen to me rattle on about what's currently bothering me, well, then the Olympics are on. Go watch. I think someone won a gold medal today, lessee, who was it? No, I'm not going to tell you who won today and spoil your viewing fun. But seriously, if you'd rather not deal with my rantings (not that this is much of a rant tonight), I give you permission to go. Come back later when I'm not on my soapbox and we'll have some fun.

Right now though I really need to make a few points about the whole Chick-Fil-A brouhaha.

1. Chick-Fil-A, a private company owned by a very, very conservative Christian family, is in the deep fryer over the fact that they actively donate to conservative Christian groups who actively oppose gay rights.

2. Chick-Fil-A, in donating to these conservative groups, is perfectly within their rights to do so. It's their money and they can do whatever they want with it.

3. Some people feel strongly about the money they spend on lunch not going to these conservative groups, who actively oppose gay rights. And they are refusing to do business with Chick-Fil-A. Which is also their right.

4. One of the people who has a problem with Chick-Fil-A's donations to groups that support discrimination against GLBT people (that would be Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender) is the mayor of Chicago, who is opposing Chick-Fil-A opening stores in Chicago because of the owner's conservative views/donations.

5. Can or should Chicago try to legislate what types of charitable/non-profit donations made by any company are acceptable? I think not. That's a little too big brother for my taste.

6. Do I personally think donating to groups that actively lobby for laws that discriminate against GLBT or quite frankly, any group or person, is a truly Christian act and morally responsible? No, I don't. I personally think it's morally reprehensible.

7. Does that change my belief that Chick-Fil-A has the right to donate their money to who they want to donate it to? No, it's their money and they can waste as much of it as they want.

8. Will I be giving any of my hard earned cash to Chick-Fil-A knowing that this is the kind of charitable donations they make? No, they've lost my business. Because it is my right as a consumer to choose where I spend my money, based on my own personal moral code.

9. Do I have suggestions for Chick-Fil-A on some better uses for their charitable donations? Why yes, I do. How about funding vaccinations for children in the poorer parts of America and the world? Donating to literacy groups. Donating to food banks? Or anything that would genuinely help their fellow man rather than to groups who want to beat down anyone they consider to be 'different.'

10. What else? Oh yes, I'd like to point out to the owners of Chick-Fil-A that contrary to what they think, keeping America free is not about keeping it free of anyone whose lifestyle, religion, or sexual orientation they disagree with. Keeping America free is about ensuring that everyone, and I do mean everyone, has the same rights as the person standing next to them or across the cultural divide.

Heroes

I have a small confession to make: I have a sort of litmus test for people. Basically, if they say their hero or one of their heroes is Princess Diana, I tend to put them down as people who are, shall we say, a bit shallow. Nothing against Princess Di. But based on what I know about the late princess, I have a hard time thinking of her as a 'hero.' In the interests of complete disclosure, I admit I do have a bit of a fascination with the British Royal Family. As in, if I see a news headline about them, I am more likely to read the article than I am to pass it up. Yes, I am shallow that way. But are any of them my heroes? No. And are they or any celebrity ever likely to be?

No. I have higher standards for heroes than mere news coverage or wealth. And my standards, as vague as they are, are high enough that if someone had asked me last year who my hero is, I would have been hard pressed to come up with an answer. But the months since this past February have changed that. I can honestly say that I do have a hero now. It's my little sister, Mary Claire.

In February, Mary Claire was diagnosed with cancer. I was with her when she got the news and let me tell you, my heart still stops when I think of that day. Because the news was awful in the truest sense of the word. That day was the day when the bottom dropped out of my family's world. Many people, hearing that diagnosis would have simply given up. Quite honestly, that was one of Mary Claire's choices. But she didn't take that choice. Instead she chose to fight the cancer cells that invaded her body with everything that she had.

Over the past six months, I've watched my sister transform. She readily admitted that she well may have done this to herself with heavy drinking and smoking. She told me early on, after she had first found that telltale lump near her collar bone that, "I knew I shouldn't be drinking and smoking this way, but I couldn't be bothered to stop. I had my fun, now I have to pay the price." But instead of deciding that since the damage was done, she might as well continue to enjoy her vices, she gave up her vices. Cold turkey the night before we received the news. Some might say that she took the easy road and it was too little, too late. But I have been there with her and I can tell you that my sister looked at the fork in the road before her and she did not choose the easy path. Even though she has made it look easy.

As she has made much of this ordeal look easy. From the very beginning, Mary Claire has looked this disease in the eye and faced it with grace and courage. When something she's facing does get to her, she has her cry and moves on. As she did one day when she was told that the new chemo mix they were going to use would require her to stay in the hospital for five days instead of three. She cried, but then later that day when I called to check on her, she told me, " Oh, I had my pout and I'm over it now."

Even when we were children, I knew Mary Claire had that core of courage. She could outrun everyone in the neighborhood. She would dive off the high diving board at our local swimming pool without hesitation. She did not let her fears get in her way and she hasn't let them get in the way of her fight to get well. And she is getting well. She has amazed her doctor with the way she has responded to the chemotherapy and with how rapidly the tumors have shrunk.

This past week, Mary Claire was rewarded with a respite from all the chemo. She is not yet in full remission, but she's made such incredible progress, that her doctor has decided that she can have a break from treatment for three months to rest and get her strength back before hitting the remaining cancer with whatever it takes to take it out. We were stunned. We cried. We hugged. And we rejoiced.

At some point in time, Mary Claire will resume chemo treatments. When she does, I'm sure that she will continue her fight against cancer with the same determination she has shown so far. And I'm also sure that she will get well.

This is my sister. And she's my hero.