Have you been hurt by your church?

[Miserissima]

Yes, I’ve been hurt by certain folks at my Latin parish to the point where I asked God where He wanted me to go.

And strangely, after this break (going to the Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy instead of Mass for over a year), the people who swooped in to help were from my old parish.

I’ve taken too long in trying to parse out the details to share here, so Cat, I’ll just recommend this book: amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003E7EYQ2?pc_redir=1398811331&robot_redir=1 a similar story. I fact, I met the author’s brother while he had a, book store I Crystal City.

First, this book is obviously cathartic to the author. Second, people need to know they’re not alone–there is a market for misery. However, thirdly, perhaps you can paint your story with a more theological bent to plant “sets” for others on their journey home.

Oh, before I forget, I like the stone turning analogy that your husband made. To frame it differently, Francis is encouraging us to “clean house,” minds, hearts, life styles: let’s “get the bugs out!”

 

[cheese_sdc]

You’re in my prayers.

I actually do appreciate that.

 

[robwar]

I think forgiveness is a process of healing. Sometimes it is instant, sometimes it takes time. Forgiveness also includes seeking out justice for wrongs suffered especially if the wrong suffered was illegal to begin with. Forgiveness doesn’t sweep things under the rug with a “that’s ok”. I always look at Joseph as a model. He was almost killed by his own brothers, then sold as a slave and the whole thing was covered up to Jacob. After several years later with a number of bumps in the road, his brothers showed up in front of him looking for help. He didn’t immediately open up his arms with hugs and kisses. He took two of them and threw them in jail, he was gruff and stern. I think his early responses was Joseph working out the hurt and anger which is very understandable. He likewise used them to ask about Jacob. He likewise cried. I think I look at Joseph as a model of how God can use the bad things done to us by others to end up in better places in the end. If problems with the previous Church lead you to the Catholic Church, then that starts the road to healing of the past. Telling others to forgive can often be used too glibly sometimes but there are definite steps one can take to head down that road of healing and forgiveness and trust.

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

I’m pretty sure this subject can be discussed charitably, and I expect it be so.

 

[JustaServant]

Good topic Cat.
This past year I got the opportunity to teach an RCIA class. I’ve been back in the Church for almost seven years now, but I’m glad I waited this long to teach it. Looking back, even on my posts here on CAF, seven years ago I was full of zeal, a little self-righteousness, and anger at my former church. Time has mellowed me I hope.
Anyway, at that class, I gave a brief testimony of leaving the CC, becoming a Baptist, and then returning years later. A woman asked me:
“Why did you leave”?
I thought for a moment and answered:
“I guess I was looking for the ‘perfect’”.
Perfect people, perfect church, perfect teaching, perfect environment.
Our RCIA director smiled and asked:
“Did you ever find it”?
Didn’t have to think about that one.
“Heck no”.

If you’re looking for the ‘perfect’, you’ll be hurt every time. Catholic, Protestant, whatever.
When we look for the ‘perfect’, we are implying that we have already achieved such a status. Everyone else has to measure up to us and our standards.
But we are superior to no one. Focusing on whatever ‘hurt’ us in the past only leads to bitterness. And bitterness destroys the soul.
I told the RCIA candidtates:
“If you’re looking for the ‘perfect’…boy have you come to the wrong place”.
The only ‘perfect’ I find now is in Christ.

 

[cheese_sdc]

Cheese SDC…

That attack that you are having is very strong and it is from the evil one.

Go before the Blessed Sacrament and just sit before Our Lord and rest in His heart and ask for healing. Go to confession and speak about this to the priest and ask for his blessing and see what else he can recommend.

Anxiety is from the evil one.

Nope. I’ve been down that road before and I don’t care to go back. Look through the blog linked below if you’d like more details.

 

[cheese_sdc]

Cheese SDC…

That attack that you are having is very strong and it is from the evil one.

Anxiety is from the evil one.

Anxiety is “a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events”.

 

[Country_Gal]

Wow, just wow, can’t believe it! You all have a good day.

 

[andrewstx]

I was hurt in the denomination I was raised and ‘dunked’ in the Southern A Capella 'churches of Christ. I was pretty much forced by my parents when I HAD to move from Mom’s House to Dad’s house. That was the only church I was allowed to go to, and I knew that the old age of 16 that I had to be baptized. And in that sect baptism is not just symbolic but they teach it is for forgiveness of sin.

But I clashed with them and did not fit in because I resisted their worship of the bible as a paper and ink idol.

As soon as I graduated and was forced out of the house that very same night, I quit the csofC. Within a year I was Catholic. A few years passed and I like Cheese tried my vocation. I only got through the postulancy and was denied becoming a Novice. I had a lot of bad experiences there and when I was kicked out I was not told why, only ‘hit the door’.

I was very depressed for a long time at my rejection and some of the brothers said "I am sorry to learn of your rejection. So I didn’t go to Mass for a long time. And stated going n to the Episcopal church. I was unhappy there too. They did not seem to believe in anything firmly lest it be “pay your pledge and practice good taste”.

I had always been interested in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox faiths but there were none where I lived, and still no EC church. Finaly an Orthodox church opened where I actually lived, and I have been Orthodox ever since.

 

[iepuras]

I was born and raised LDS, and I was hurt by the belief system and the methods of LDS church members use to instill those beliefs. Overall, I was generally treated well by the leadership of the LDS church, so no major complaints there.

Due to the LDS beliefs and teachings on women and marriage, I always struggled with self-esteem and believing that I could be loved. I always had a difficult time with the expectations and beliefs on what a woman is supposed to do and be in the LDS church because it is not who I am. I was expected to fit into a particular box, and I simply did not fit in that box. The expectation from the LDS church and my LDS family to be something that I am not, was very damaging to my soul.

When I left the LDS church, I was also hurt by the rejection and shunning of family and friends. I basically lost all of my friends. My relationship with my parents has disintegrated because they taught my children about Mormonism behind my back and lied about it. I learned that my parents’ love is conditional based on my belief and activity in the LDS church.

My journey into the Catholic Church was very healing for me on the issues related to women and self-esteem. I’m happy that I don’t have to fit into a particular box and that all I need to do is be who God created me to be. I’m still working through what my parents did as that is very recent.

 

[Cat]

Good topic Cat.
This past year I got the opportunity to teach an RCIA class. I’ve been back in the Church for almost seven years now, but I’m glad I waited this long to teach it. Looking back, even on my posts here on CAF, seven years ago I was full of zeal, a little self-righteousness, and anger at my former church. Time has mellowed me I hope.
Anyway, at that class, I gave a brief testimony of leaving the CC, becoming a Baptist, and then returning years later. A woman asked me:
“Why did you leave”?
I thought for a moment and answered:
“I guess I was looking for the ‘perfect’”.
Perfect people, perfect church, perfect teaching, perfect environment.
Our RCIA director smiled and asked:
“Did you ever find it”?
Didn’t have to think about that one.
“Heck no”.

If you’re looking for the ‘perfect’, you’ll be hurt every time. Catholic, Protestant, whatever.
When we look for the ‘perfect’, we are implying that we have already achieved such a status. Everyone else has to measure up to us and our standards.
But we are superior to no one. Focusing on whatever ‘hurt’ us in the past only leads to bitterness. And bitterness destroys the soul.
I told the RCIA candidtates:
“If you’re looking for the ‘perfect’…boy have you come to the wrong place”.
The only ‘perfect’ I find now is in Christ.

I agree that we will never find perfection here on this earth.

But I also think that there is a huge difference between church members rubbing each other the wrong way, and hitting each other hard enough to cause pain and disability.

Rubbing each other the wrong way is normal when people are together in close proximity over a long period of time.

But hitting each other hard enough to cause pain and disability is evil.

There will be conflicts in churches, but there should be no evil. When churches harbor evil, they should be held accountable.

 

[Cat]

Cat,
I am not very familiar with your story but when you said that your daughter suffered “abuse”, do you mean some kind of physical or sexual? I’m not trying to pry but understand the basics of the story. With her now being an adult, she probably will have to come to terms with the hurt and pain on her own time frame which is hard to do when you are a parent.
I think all of us can look at whatever Church we grew up with and find that many Christians have had significant hurts. I know that growing up and going through the Sunday school system in the Methodist Church, i always felt bullied which set me on a course of searching when eventually landed me in the Catholic Church. But, i hold now no ill will or anger because I’ve come to the place of forgiveness and viewing those hurts as what drove me to look elsewhere. If your past Church Cat gave you the left foot of fellowship, I think you can and do view it God using that to move you to the Catholic Church. I think there are different types of trust in religion. There is trust in others which can be unstable because others can and will fail us. But there is trust in teaching and truth which if based on God’s truth won’t fail us. There is also trust in God’s justice which can take longer. If something that was illegal happen to your daughter, was that ever pursued in our legal system?

We don’t know what happened to her. We only know that she wouldn’t go into the church by herself.

Yes, you’re right, what happened to us was a blessing eventually, as it was the impetus that got us into the Catholic Church.

We loved our Evangelical Protestant church and life so much that I don’t think we would have ever left it for Catholicism, even if the cleverest apologist in the world convinced us of the truth of Catholicism. So God allowed us to go through the pain for the sake of a greater gain.

Kind of like death. In fact, that’s what it felt like at the time. All that we knew and loved was ripped away from us, and we had nothing left. I remember the first Wednesday night we sat down and watched Wednesday night TV–we couldn’t remember ever watching TV on a Wednesday night because that was “church night.”

In fact, I believe to this day that the critically-acclaimed TV show, Christy, went off the air because they aired it on Wednesday night, and back then, not everyone had VCRs, and all the Christians who would be most interested in watching Christy were at midweek Bible study/prayer meeting/choir practice, and/or working with the children’s club ministries in their churches.

But yes, you’re right, at this point in our lives, we are grateful that God plucked us out of the Protestant church and led us home to the Catholic Church!

 

[JustaServant]

I agree that we will never find perfection here on this earth.

But I also think that there is a huge difference between church members rubbing each other the wrong way, and hitting each other hard enough to cause pain and disability.

Rubbing each other the wrong way is normal when people are together in close proximity over a long period of time.

But hitting each other hard enough to cause pain and disability is evil.

There will be conflicts in churches, but there should be no evil. When churches harbor evil, they should be held accountable.

Jerri Massi has been documenting abuse, physical, sexual, and mental in fundamentalist churches for years:
jeriwho.net/lillypad2/
Scroll down to The Christian Fundamentalist Roll Call of Shame on the right. And many other documented cases.
Another is Stop Baptist Predators:
stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/

The key word you use is ‘accountable’.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

I’m putting this thread in the Non-Catholic Religions section because I want people from all faith communities to have a chance to respond.

Have you ever been hurt by your church?

I’ve been on CAF for many years, and many of the other old-timers here know that my husband and I were kicked out of our Evangelical Protestant church in 2002. I won’t go into the details at this time. Back when it happened, I wrote it out it great detail, and it’s about 70 pages. I’ve thought about doing a proposal to a publishing house, but who would want it? It’s disturbing.

My husband and I were just talking this morning about the effect that this awful incident has had on our family and is still having. To this day, we have problems trusting even our beloved Catholic Church. My husband is one of the Catholics who is not sure what to think of Pope Francis. He’s afraid that now the rock is turning over and the worms and bugs underneath the rock will be exposed.

Although one of our daughters converted to Catholicism and is a devout Catholic, she has never been able to establish a love relationship, and I can’t help but wonder if the betrayal by our church influences her ability to get close to someone.

Our other daughter (the one who suffered the most abuse from our church) is still not attending any church, and we suspect that she has too many awful memories.

We know other ex-Protestant converts to Catholicism who have been hurt by their Protestant churches who feel the same way as we do–they have difficulty fully trusting, and they always harbor a little bit of worry that perhaps the whole thing will blow up in their faces and they’ll discover that Catholicism isn’t true either, and then what? It’s a Secret Fear. We all know that Christians weren’t meant to be alone, but we can’t quite bring ourselves to totally trust “church” because of the hurt that we experienced in our “churches.”

Have any of you been hurt by your church? How has it affected your journey to heaven?

I have not so much been hurt by a church as much as been shocked that folks could be so heartless. Especially folks claiming to be part of the One True Church of Christ.

 

[KendraM]

May God help you through this. I have also been hurt, hurt, hurt by the LDS church. It seems it will take a lifetime to heal. A heavy cross to carry. Sometimes I think I have forgiven, but then I wonder when I feel angry. Then I cry during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I find comfort in the Catholic Church but I am afraid to be wrong again. I’m afraid to be hurt again. It is hard to trust human beings but do not give up your trust on Jesus.

What I like about Catholics is that they believe in redemptive suffering. You allow yourself to work through it with Jesus. What I also like is that the Holy Spirit will not leave you through it all. Sure, the devil may be trying to pull you away from God but the Holy Spirit will not abandon you. That is the beauty of Christ’s true church. We are given truth to heal the hurt.

Trust God, pray, do not give up. Ask God to send people in your life who will help through this healing process. You may also be a help to others. As St. Paul says, “Fight the good fight, finish the race.” We all need encouragement because we are all human. May God have mercy on us all.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

We don’t know what happened to her. We only know that she wouldn’t go into the church by herself.

Without knowing exactly what happened to your daughter, it’s very difficult to give an answer.
In my experience, the type of churches that abuse are usually small personality cults with passive people who never question thier leader. These churches tend to be ‘independent’ of any authority other than themselves. That tends to be a recipe for disaster.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

I would recomend you ask your question on this site:
sflforums.com/index.php
Be prepared though, its not CAF.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I wasn’t so much hurt by the Church as I was by the self-loathing mentality that some religious people harbored and encouraged (some on these very boards).

Of course, I share some responsibility for buying into it. But as much as I don’t want to waste my energy casting blame, neither will I resume my investment ever again.

 

[robwar]

We don’t know what happened to her. We only know that she wouldn’t go into the church by herself.

Yes, you’re right, what happened to us was a blessing eventually, as it was the impetus that got us into the Catholic Church.

We loved our Evangelical Protestant church and life so much that I don’t think we would have ever left it for Catholicism, even if the cleverest apologist in the world convinced us of the truth of Catholicism. So God allowed us to go through the pain for the sake of a greater gain.

Kind of like death. In fact, that’s what it felt like at the time. All that we knew and loved was ripped away from us, and we had nothing left. I remember the first Wednesday night we sat down and watched Wednesday night TV–we couldn’t remember ever watching TV on a Wednesday night because that was “church night.”

In fact, I believe to this day that the critically-acclaimed TV show, Christy, went off the air because they aired it on Wednesday night, and back then, not everyone had VCRs, and all the Christians who would be most interested in watching Christy were at midweek Bible study/prayer meeting/choir practice, and/or working with the children’s club ministries in their churches.

But yes, you’re right, at this point in our lives, we are grateful that God plucked us out of the Protestant church and led us home to the Catholic Church!

I am sorry Cat about your daughter. Again, I can safely assume that whatever her experience was or maybe attempted on her maybe lead to the break with the Church?
I guess I am concerned here in that whatever caused her to fear going to Church alone needs to be brought out in the open by her. The problem with abusers is that victims usually just leave or cover it up with either shame or hurt and then abusers move on to someone else and continue. If she was being bothered or hurt by someone, then I would image there are others too. Maybe this attempt to find truth lead to the break since you don’t know what happen?

 

[NoWings]

I was actually hurt by a church that wasn’t even mine.

I decided to explore apostolic Christianity, read the Church Fathers and Mothers, lives of the saints, apologetics, all that stuff. I ended up stuck trying to figure out where the Real Church™ was. I was caught between Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. I ended up in an existential depression that lasted for three years and helped cause my first wife and I to divorce. I ultimately gave up altogether and decided the Church had failed because the body of Christ is either split or the body of Christ is not split but God has allowed men to keep the body separate from itself which causes people to stumble. Heresy here, heresy there, a little Assyrian schism here, a little Chalcedon there, a little 95 theses, Council of Florence, and voila… no one can point to where The Church™ is, other than to say, “Well, mine of course!” Obviously. Everyone is going to say that.

Then there was the time I was in RCIA and was told that it would be better if I didn’t attend anymore. Not really sure why. That kind of hurt.

Then there’s the Catholic teaching concerning a certain issue that states that my wife and I shouldn’t even be married right now.

So, I’m content to sit back as a spectator and watch internet theologians argue about how many angels fit on the head of a pin and all that.