How can I reconcile with the church in the wake of abuse scandal?

[chibi]

I really feel like this is the last straw. It's funny, I knew that the church has done some crappy things in it's history, but somehow this latest sex abuse scandal has just clinched it for me- I don't think I want to go back. I feel sick and betrayed. It goes so far beyond 'well priests are human and fallible blah blah' the whole church itself knew and covered it up. Probably even the one who is pope now.

I feel like I can't go to mass anymore as it won't just be me being with god but will be me giving my assent and consent to all thus awfulness - do what you like, I don't mind, I'll come back no matter what.

I can't just shop around for a new branch of Christianity, to me that's like saying well if your parents are abusive just get new ones! It's them or nothing, really.

Fellow Catholics, how is all this affecting you? I feel cut adrift.

Please no anticatholic bile spewing I know exactly how awful my church is already.

chibi- but it is not the catholic faith itself that has done these things- there is not some dogma requiring catholic priests to be abusers.

SO if you still believe in the basics of the catholic faith then you have a duty to bring your children up as practising Catholics.

Nobody is asking you to condone what these evil people have done, and IMO by going to Mass you will not be doing that. As an individual you are not responsible for the actions of a few, or even of many, depraved people who abused their power.

falafel it goes beyond that - it now seems it is/was church policy to cover up, silence victims, move abusers on to new parishes.

even if this was originally done in good faith, surely it was apparent that these priests were continuing to abuse children after they had to be moved again and again and again.

i know that i am responsible for no one's sins but mine, but i feel that by continuing to go to church i am giving my 'ok' to all of this. i don't want to be a part of an institution like this anymore.

again, this is probably not even the worst thing the church has done in its history. it just feels like now it has done enough.

what you said about having a duty to raise my children as catholics weighs very heavily on my mind. who am i to deny them a relationship with god, yet how can i take them to church feeling as i do?

I think BetsyBoop's idea of visiting a High Anglican church is a good one - you could spend some time with God, but without the mental baggage you are currently dealing with when you attend your own church.

Maybe even in your lunch hour when there is no service on? They usually have a quiet space set aside.

FWIW, I imagine your kids will find their own relationship with God - don't we all, in the end?

This is such an awful situation.

Falafel as chibi says it is much more than a few abusive priests. The hierarchy of the church covered it up, allowed the abusers to continue abusing, moving them on to places where there were new children to attack. They were more concerned with their own reputation and protecting their own people, than the welfare of all these children. So many thousands of lives ruined. And the church hierarchy - they knew and they shrugged.

Still people are not being prosecuted. It is dIsgusting.

As others say, for many it is the last straw. Most people ignore the parts that they don't agree with - the stance on homosexuality, condoms and the 3rd world, termination in cases of rape of children and so on. But this is just a step too far.

I understand that, but church policy does not mean you have to agree with it. Even the Pope has now admitted to the misguidedness of this policy. I guess why the cover up happened may never fully be revealed but I believe in forgiveness and it appears to me that the Church has learnt a valuable lesson.
It also strikes me that possibly the cover up started small and snowballed, church leaders may have been backed into a corner and when it got to a certain stage were unsure how to proceed without it becoming an even bigger scandal. Not that it excuses them but just trying to speculate on why the cover up happened.

To me, the scandal is just that. Scandalous, evil and dreadful. My heart goes out to the victims and I am shocked by the behaviour of those who dared to call themselves Christians while doing these awful things.

BUT what they were doing was not Christian and nobody will try to claim that that is the case. The abuses have now stopped and measures have been put into place to prevent them from happening again.

Personally I don't know anybody who has been affected by the issues, so I guess for me and people in my parish, it is easier to continue to stand by the church as we have had a succession of lovely, good and uncorrupt clergy in our parish since the emncipation of Catholics in the 19th century.

This is not to say I stand by those who covered the scandals up, but merely that I think it is easier for me to see the bigger picture.

I'mSoNottelling- I thought the Pope claimed that the abusers would be facing the consequences of their actions, ie in law as well?

I also attend a high anglican church these days. There are quite a few RC there. Many still identify themselves as Catholic even though they can't/won't worship in the RC church.

In fact our church is catholic - all of them are catholic - just not the Roman bit IYSWIM

He said that they should face "suitabe tribunals" or something like that. That doesn't necessarily mean the same as facing the full consequences in law.

Many of these men have not been arrested despite there being evidence of them abusing hundreds of children. The government and church are so tied together in these countries that thet seem to be little will to act.

I think those who are disgusted by what has gone on to the point where they feel continuing to be a member of the RC church is insupportable, are also seeing the big picture falafel.

Falfel but can you separate the catholic faith and doctrine from the institution? I thought I could, but I don't feel I can anylonger.

I think in attending mass you are aligning yourself with the institution, you are saying you are part of that, and for me it is now an institution which I feel is so corrupt and rotten that I no longer want to be a part of it.

I have always felt, like Custardo, that catholism was the way in which I chose to expereince and practice my relatinship with God. I now feel that I do not want to be a part of the Catholic church at all, and I will have to find some other way of understanding and expressing my faith. (which is currently shaky itself anyway but that's another issue.)

I feel similar to you, OP.

However, one thing that kind of resonates is that at that time, a lot of people in power (teachers, parents, priests) did a lot of bad things (physical and emotional abuse) so I think it is kind of a sin of the times and not just The Catholic Church.

For instance, my dad went to a grammar school in the 50s and says that now he recognises that some of the masters were what would now be called paedophiles, but they didn't have a name for it at the time, and no-one knew quite how to react to it.

There were lots of parents who were abusive at those times, but the whole concept of "Family" hasn't been lost, has it? There were lots of teachers who were abusive (in non-Catholic schools IYSWIM) and we haven't given up of the concept of school, and unfortunately there were also bad priests, but let's not give up on the concept of the Church.

Am NOT making light of the scandal or excusing it, but thank God we have many more safeguards in place in all these institutions. Let's hope it doesn't happen again and let's hope no cover up happens again.

Anyhow - not trying to make light of this terrible problem, but that is how I am dealing with it. Of course, had I known anyone directly involved I may feel very different about the whole thing.

Chibi;

The point I made about Hitler being a catholic is relevant, (I was responding to you mentioning the Nazis actually)..

..I think you need to read up on the Vaticans approach to Hitler...I recommend the book,..
"the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany"

I'd also recommend you talk this through with your priest.

Good Luck.

This feels like the last straw to me
Have always been 'culturally' catholic (I do like that term) and ignored the million other issues and taken the stuff I do like.
I felt like I was losing my faith after my DB died, but thought with time it would return
I can not add this issue to the ever growing list, and cannot encourage my DCs to worship a God within the Catholic church
DH has been encouraging me to his religion
I don't know what to do anymore
I feel I have lost my religious identity

When faith is such a huge part of your life it's hard to just walk away from what you believed in, what was yours, where you got comfort, healing, hope, inspiration but I realised a long time ago that God was omnipresent and not only available to those who attented church and so I found the courage to trust that God understood I could not associate myself with those who had choosen to take free will and use it abuse others and I stopped going to church.

I talk to God everyday without attending church and my faith is that he is listening, he sees, he guides and he loves me. I am raising dd with my belief system and of course she will be able to make choices for herself as she matures and gets a better sense of what the world means to her. She attends catholic school and I'm, so far, very happy with the level of information they receive and the lessons they're taught.

I've been where you are OP and thankfully have found a place where I can be happy. It's different for everyone though. I wish I could tell you how to resolve it for yourself but it's such a personal issue and I don't think you will find the answers easily - it's too horrific a realisation and shock to be able to come to terms with quickly or brush under the carpet.

Try not to be in a hurry, you know that God did not condone (sp?) what went on and so he will understand you taking a step back for a while, you're not turning your back on him. Would you consider attending a church group where maybe others are having similar doubts?

NonnoMum - the cover-ups in Milwaukee (200 deaf children abused, the then Cardinal Ratzinger declined to remove the cleric responsible) were from the 1990s, when child protection was big news!

I feel for chibi's dilemma, because I feel it does go beyond personal faith, and that to some extent the very structure of the church has enabled this to happen. I don't completely agree with Felafel's quote "There is nothing in the Catholic faith which promotes paedophilia; atleast, I haven?t come across anything like that. So let us not be embarrassed by what a group of filthy old men did to young children", Of course catholicism dosn't promote paedophilia, but the authority of the hierarchy, the closed circles, the secrecy, even the role of the Sacrament of Reconciliation have helped obscure and hide ill-doing. I also do not believe that it is celibacy that has caused this, but I wonder whether the very structure of the church (as described above) has presented a haven for people who know they are dysfucntional in the wider world. Maybe they thought a vocation would protect them from themselves and help them resist temptation, but found instead that the church gave them a cover under which temptation was all too powerful.

So I agree with chibi, I think it goes beyond personal faith, and into a questioning as to how the church itself has contributed to the misery of those children. And until the church co-operates in a legal prosection of the guilty, the church itself remains implicated. . Do you need the church in your personal relationship with God?

As usual dittany you go way too far...your last post was so insulting I'm almost speechless....why don't you just piss off.

Sorry, but I am with Dittany. There is no justification for what has happened. I will never understand why anyone could be a member of this organisation. You cannot distinguish the good parts from these horrors.

I'm a catholic and I agree with what Dittany has written.

The OP however is a Catholic asking other catholics who are practising how this will affect their faith and practice and whether they can still reamin within the church.

Other catholics struggling with this will be more helpful in aiding her working through this than those who are not catholic and who have long despised the church.

i think SGB recognised this in her last post.

ditanny...maybe one day you will try and see things from someone elses point of view..

..I have had a catholic priest as a close family friend for almost 20 years...he is fantastic and works tirelessly for the vulnerable in the community...I feel honored to know him.

Only a tiny minority of priests were involved in these cases, you have to remember that....

I know the pope was involved, previous popes have had Hitler on their christmas card list....that doesn't mean all catholics are Nazis..

The catholic church will recover, we pray for the victims of abuse and we will learn from this truely awful situation.

The thing I am drawing comfort from is that in England the number of cases has been very low (0.4%). I am confident that safeguarding children is now very good in the RC church in England, having been through part of the process myself.

Of course that doesn't go any way to countering the cover-ups in the past. That's appalling. But I find it hard to believe this sweeping it under the mat could ever happen again.

I hope what will happen is that more sway will go to women. Lay women, probably. Then gradually issues like contraception will be seen differently.

There is a big schism, it seems to me, between the church in England and other parts of the world. I wonder if this is because it's been a minority religion and marginalised. Funnily enough this may actually have been good for the church in England, making it harder for huge cover ups.

For me it's going to be about the local from now on. I like the priests in the two local parishes. I trust them. For the moment that's good enough.