A Friend In Doubt

[stryper]

My friend has been an agnostic for all of the time I have known him. His wife was raise Catholic She wrote this short article explaining why she left Catholicism. Apparently, Anne Rice picked up the article and re-posted it on her web site. Now she is facing the full and mighty force of the internet flames.. HAHAHAHAh...cough...uh sorry.

 

Seriously though, my friend described it as she has a lot of haters now.

 

 

 

.........

Like Rice, I was raised a strict Catholic. My parents ensured that I went through every applicable sacrament: Baptism, Penance, Communion, Confirmation. Eventually, I added Holy Matrimony to the list. When my children were born, I had them baptized in the Church. For me, it just felt like the only way.

 

Catholicism was comforting to me. The rituals of the Church were comforting. The Mass, which I had memorized at a young age, was familiar and all I had ever known. I stayed, because the Church was my home.

 

However, time changes many things. And as the controversies surrounding the Catholic Church grew, so did my doubts.

 

I discovered that two priests from my childhood were accused of crimes against children. One of those priests baptized me, the other married me and my husband.

 

I still sometimes think of those allegations when I look down at my wedding band.

 

I left the Church when my two boys became old enough to enter Sunday school. I left, because my boys put their faith in me to keep them safe.

 

As allegation after allegation came forward about childhood sexual abuse within the Church—each one seemingly more horrific than the one before—I knew that the Church’s walls were not my home anymore. Those walls certainly couldn’t be trusted to protect my children. I had no faith left in the Catholic Church.

 

.........

 

 

 

I know not quite an extimony but solid doubts.

 

[stryper]

Found the connection.