I never seriously considered leaving the Church, but when the sex abuse scandals came into the light and finding out how it was covered up, it seriously made me question what kind of Church I was in. A part of me considered leaving, especially personnally knowing people who were abused by priests as children. This feeling was more because of how the Church handled it, than the actual individual perverts. Had the leaders in the Church handled it differently, I probably would not have felt so hurt and betrayed. I continued to attend mass, albeit not with as much joy as before, but I knew many others who did not attend mass for a few months because they felt they loss faith and trust in the priests and the Church. It took many of them a while to come back.
My diocese had some major trouble. The letter that came out from our bishop (whom I liked and respected) was almost insulting. Some people walked out of mass when the letter was read. I wanted to walk out, but couldn’t as I was cantoring that day, but I had to control the tears that wanted to burst out of my eyes. There were some pastors in the diocese who refused to read the letter, which reminded me that there are many good, God-fearing, and spiritual people within the Church, that the Church Herself is perfect, but the humans within the Church are not perfect. It reminded me that you can’t look for perfection in the people who run the Church. You have to go through that to see the Beauty and Truth.
There was also a very short period when my husband (boyfriend and the time) and I felt like we needed more from the mass. It seemed like all aspects of the liturgy were dumbed down, lack of reverence, etc. Where was the mysterium? We were in the our early 20s, rediscovering our faith and working very hard to deepen it. Throughout the last few years, though, we have been seeing a change. With our new bishop (actually the same bishop who wrote that letter on the sex abuse scandal) we have seen a positive change in the leadership of the diocese. Our Cathedral is a much more reverent and happier place with the installation of the new pastor a year ago and wonderful residents priests, although two of them have just been reassigned.
One of our priests even does the TLM mass at the diocese’s TLM parish. The new director of music liturgy is an actual musician and an extremely humble and spiritual priest. They all seem to have been working hard with bringing thet reverence back into the mass in the local parishes and I’m glad for it. We still have a shortage in the seminary, but this year our diocese ordained 7 young men, whereas last year they ordained 3. It’s not a lot compared to the past, but it’s a step in the right direction. And now, I just found out that one of our sacristans will be going back to the seminary this fall. We’re all very happy for him, but we’ll miss him. Anyway, because of all this positive change, it has given me hope.
