NB: I am not a "recovering Catholic."
I got 99 problems, but being Catholic ain't one.
Clearly I would rather just post memes today than write an actual blog post. Probably because this just leaves me so sad and frustrated. I have some ideas what some other people have gone through... people whom the Catholic Church, or rather some specific people in it, treated badly or at any rate failed to meet them with the help they needed and that Being Itself wanted them to have... but I know almost no one's specifics, and I cannot bloody FIX it all, or any of it for that matter.
I don't know what it's like for Catholicism to be, or seem like, The Problem instead of my companion from the very first step toward The Solution out of the liquid hog shit in the very lowest subbasement of my empty, tortured life. The very idea horrifies me. "Why can't they see that this or that or this other sin is clearly against the entire real teaching of the Church? Why can't they see that this teaching they disagree with is the exact opposite of arbitrary? Why...?" I have no words to express it all today.
There are definite ways in which things within the Catholic tradition have been put to work against me. (Protip: You anxious, depressive, compulsive types out there... don't try reading Cassian without a kind and loving spiritual director, or John of the Cross for that matter.) At this vantage point, in every one of those cases, I see those situations as the Devil quoting Scripture to me just like he did in the desert to Jesus; in some sense, as demonic possession. The demons love to pervert the holy, and have loved watching me hurt myself until I was incapable of virtue. But the solution to possession is not execution: it's exorcism. Exorcism demands faith, and faith is a response to grace. I was led to the Twelve Steps, and the heavy drape has been ripped back. I don't have to live that way; I don't have to discard the beautiful reality of the world I first glimpsed in Dante's allegory at fourteen. All I have to do is deliberately choose to hope. That is a heavy cross for me, but just light enough, sized just right, I suspect.
If you are one of those "recovering Catholics," obviously, my heart is filled with sorrow for whatever wounds you have suffered. If you want or need someone to pour it all out on, well, my email link is on the right (at thatssosecondmillennium.net).
Episode 072 - Benjamin Rybicki
Episode 071 - Sonsoles de Lacalle
Episode 070 - Nicanor Austriaco
Episode 069 - Fr. Lawrence Machia OSB and Daniel vanden Berk, part II
Episode 068 - Fr. Lawrence Machia OSB and Daniel vanden Berk, part I
Episode 067 - Maureen Condic, part III
Episode 066 - Maureen Condic, part II
Episode 065 - Maureen Condic, part I
Episode 064 - SCS 2019 Panel, part II
Episode 063 - SCS 2019 Panel, part I
Bonus - Quick Hits - SCS 2019
Episode 062 - Jonathan Lunine SCS Conference Preview
Episode 061 – Preview of SCS Conference 2019
Episode 060 – What Does It Mean To Be Human? (SCS 2019)
Episode 059 – Origin Story: Society of Catholic Scientists
Episode 058 – Let’s Act Like We’re on the Winning Side (Since We Are)
Episode 057 – The Best Thing Out There
Episode 056 - Darcia Narvaez on the (other) tragedy of the commons and moral/economic disengagement in civilized society
Episode 055 - Darcia Narvaez on socialization and isolation
Episode 054 - TSSM Season 2
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