an article<\/a> about Pope Francis\u2019 decision to not allow married priests and women deacons. That article contained this paragraph,<\/p>\n\u201cThe women who thought that perhaps the female half of the human race would have a place in the Church that wasn\u2019t at the back of the bus are bitter and disappointed. I think some of them will end up leaving the Church and ultimately abandon Christ and their own salvation because of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\nEvidently, that last sentence in the paragraph hurt already hurting people. These people felt that I was telling women who are on their last nerve with the Church that if they can\u2019t take it anymore and leave, they will go to hell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThese women are suffering because of the bishops\u2019 studied indifference to the terrible misogyny of men in high places. They are scandalized and wounded by the way that the bishops just will not say that treating women like meat and committing sexual assault are sins. The bishops\u2019 long history of actively supporting, enabling and even participating in the sexual abuse of children is additional proof \u2014 and not just to hurting women, but to any thinking person \u2014 that the bishops are seriously flawed in their moral reckoning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAll Catholics have suffered because of the clergy sex abuse scandal. All women, including the self-hating women who back misogyny and support rapists, have been demeaned and endangered by the bishops\u2019 indifference to misogyny and violence against women. The bishops have stood by with their shepherd\u2019s crooks in their hands while powerful men abuse women and talk about them as objects and body parts. They have said nothing, done nothing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThis decision about women deacons was a real blow to a lot of women precisely beause they despair of ever being treated like actual human beings whose lives and purposes have the same autonomy and value as any human being. They wanted somebody at the table who would say, wait a minute, rape is not trivial, misogyny is an endemic, worldwide, historical form of persecution and discrimination that has destroyed countless lives throughout history. It is not<\/i> trivial. To the contrary, it is the most imbedded and hardened cruelty human beings practice on one another. It is a curse from hell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNo one thinks the bishops we have right now are going to say that. No one believes that the Church, as it is now, will ever take crimes of violence and persecution against women seriously.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThere are quite a number of women who have been so battered emotionally by their Church\u2019s desertion of women that they are standing on the line, teetering on the brink, of walking out of the Church. A good number of them have horrific reasons for their feelings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThey need affirmation of their humanity from their Church. They need to see their bishops crawl up out of whatever moral pit it is that allows them to trivialize sexual assault and misogyny and stand with the victims instead of the victimizers.<\/p>\n
They need their bishops to be shepherds.\u00a0<\/span>The bishops need to spend a bit of time ministering to their flocks, especially the women who have suffered so horribly from violence and misogyny.<\/p>\nIf the Church is going to continue as a clerical boys\u2019 club \u2014 and I believe it is \u2014 then that puts an enormous burden on the boys. They can\u2019t act like a football team swapping jokes about gang rape. They\u2019re going to have to act like priests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAll of which brings me back to the reason I began this post in the first place. I wrote something that led women who are teetering on the brink of leaving the Church to think I was telling them they\u2019d lose their salvation if they left.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI didn\u2019t intend to give that meaning at all.\u00a0<\/span>Here\u2019s where I stand on that whole question.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDespite the rant I just went through, I love the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church took me in and forgave me. The Catholic Church has loved me and accepted me and healed the wounds left in me by the sins I had committed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI know because I have experienced it that the graces of the sacraments are real. I know that Christ in the Eucharist is a living reality and that He will touch you and heal you when you partake of Him. I believe that the teachings of the Church are a roadway, a path, you can follow to get to heaven.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The Church, for all its failings, will bring you to Jesus and show you how to get to heaven. That is its mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Church has Jesus in it. But the Church does not contain or control Jesus. Jesus is wherever you are.\u00a0<\/span>He came to me when I was driving my car on the road to Enid Oklahoma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWhat I meant to say, what I was trying to express, is that I fear that a number of these women will leave the Church and drift away from Jesus until they end up abandoning Him too and that<\/i> will cost them their salvation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThere is only one empty tomb. There is only one way to salvation, and that Way is Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Catholic Church was founded by Christ, and it offers the simplest and most sure way to get to heaven. I hope that you do not let the leaders of this Church drive you away by their indifference and hardness of heart. There is so much good here.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI do not want women to leave the Catholic Church because of the Church\u2019s indifference to sexual assault, rape and misogyny. But if they do leave, I want them to find another Christian community where they can live out their faith.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDo not, ever, turn your back on Jesus. He understands your suffering. He understands your pain. He has felt it Himself.\u00a0<\/span>He was murdered by political priests who were indifferent to His suffering, in league with a cowardly politician.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span>I am sorry that what I wrote caused pain for my sisters in suffering. This clerical indifference to misogyny and violence against women is as wrong as anything I have ever seen.<\/p>\nI love the Catholic Church. I hope you stay. But if you leave, you will go with my love and prayers that your walk with Christ deepens and becomes even more fruitful for Him in your new Christian community.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you leave the Catholic Church, does a trap door open under your feet and drop you down a chute to flaming hell? No.\u00a0 Is the Catholic Church a highway to heaven?\u00a0 Yes. Is the Catholic Church the only way to find Jesus? No.\u00a0 I recently published an article about Pope Francis\u2019 decision to not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":29357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,752,7660,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catholic","category-misogyny-2","category-rape-2","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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