Catholic family leaving church

[proud2BlibKansan]

http://www.pitch.com/issues/2004-12-09/news/janovy.html

This is a great read. Sorry I couldn't copy any of it and post it here. But it is worth reading.

[murielm99]

1. I have a friend in our county Democratic organization who

drives elderly Catholic ladies to mass every Sunday.

She told me one of her eighty year old ladies has stopped going to mass for the first time in her life. She was offended that the priest told them not to vote for Kerry.

Another one is contemplating quitting. How sad that the church is failing these devout people.

[demosincebirth]

4. It all depends on where you go to mass. You can't paint the church with a

wide brush. My parish is in N.Ca and is as progressive and liberal as you can get.

[DustMolecule]

2. These wise ones know the difference between devotion to The Lord

and devotion to human agendas...of all sorts.

We all should 'watch and learn', imho.

[tomreedtoon]

3. Reminds me of my own situation.

Excuse me if this gets personal and long, but isn't everything with religion?

Decades ago, my sister married in the Catholic Church. He turned out to be abusive, a guy who would shoot up their apartment with a tear gas gun, and who beat her. It was only after she had been married several months that she found out his discharge from the military was for diagnosed mental problems.

If she had told her brothers about it, we would have beaten the man senseless or worse. She even reached the point of desperation of looking up an old boyfriend who had ties to organized crime; he supposedly could have gotten an anonymous hit arranged for about $50. Fortunately for her legality and her soul, the old boyfriend was in prison at the time.

During this time, she had to escort one of her old office friends - another Catholic - to a back-alley abortion. She came back sickened, saying simply "they tore her up." Thank God I was so innocent of sex and reproduction that I didn't know what those four words meant.

She explored the possibility of getting an "annulment" in the Church, the only way a Catholic can leave a spouse. She was told that it would be extremely expensive, that it would involve getting someone to plead the case in the Vatican, and that even then the outcome would be improbable. The priest urged her to "make your marriage work."

She told him, "Unless you can do better than that, I'm leaving this church and never coming back." And she did.

And years later, after the divorce, she told me the above story - knowing that I was the one brother that would not pick up a gun and kill her ex. And at that point, I too left the Catholic Church.

I have been back since, perhaps once a year, to take my aged mother to Mass and offer her the comforting illusion that the Catholic Church is a place of faith and honor. But never at any other time.

Sad as this may seem to devout Catholics, I think it's better than the hypocrisy of people who continue to go to Mass, maintain the appearances of being Catholic, but despise the Church's political stances and follow their own consciences in private.

[dddem]

5. Funny this post should be here today.

I just decided I need to give my church another chance, for the sake of my children. So off I trot to mass today, and doesn't the priest start talking about the church's obligation to make political statements. His word were something to the effect of "I don't agree with people who say the church shouldn't be involved in politics. That's just stupid. Who else s going to tell you right from wrong" or words to that effect. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my kids' heads turn to me to see my reaction. I think they were afraid I'd make a public scene.

After mass, I told my kids I felt that the priest was wrong. I told them a good American educates themselves about the issues and votes based on what they think is important. You can't go by what a priest or minister tells you to think. I also told them that if you live by the commandment "thou shalt not kill", then you have to decide whether there is a difference between abortion and execution.

I guess in one way I'm glad I went. It gave me an opportunity to further illustrate for my kids the difference between faith and religion. But boy, was I steamed!

[Dude_CalmDown]

6. I stopped going to church on Easter 2003

I was raised with Catholic parents (who both voted Kerry BTW) and I stopped going because I could not stand it any more. I stopped going regularly during the run-up to the war/invasion because the priest had an obvious hard-on for bunnypants. He kept offering prayers to keep us safe from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Every week it was a rant on gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. - but bombing innocent civilians was A-OK. During Easter mass in 2003 he commented on how terrible it was that some Iraqis were trying to destroy freedom for all the others. I almost walked out right there but I did not want to embarrass my family. So instead I went home and printed out a bunch of pictures of Iraqi children (some were kind of gory), went back at a later mass and hung it up on the wall where they had asked us to hang up pictures of the servicemen we wanted to keep in everyone's prayers. I have not been back since.

A fun note: When my father got the bulletin after mass on the weekend before the election and noticed a "Voting Guide" by the Christian Coalition he walked back inside the church, ripped it up and threw it on the floor. My parents are probably more disgusted by the church than I am (probably because I never really cared all that much) but for some reason they still go. They say that they are Catholic and a church that does not completely understand Catholic values won't stop them from getting out of it what they want. I'd rather not let the church think I support them in any way.

[VPStoltz]

7. My thoughts exactly

I was "away' from the church for about 20 years. On the recommendation of a friend I found a very accepting, "liberal" congregation here in Seattle. I had been going faithfully to that church for about 5 years until this past summer. The story is the same for me - I can no longer support the church. However, my friends at the church and my partner are all encouraging me to return. What I am thinking of doing is no longer giving monetarily to the Catholic Church but sending my contributions to charities of my choise. I do miss the message my congregation embraced which is far more Christ-like than any of those idiots who voted for *.