If you had told me three years ago I would be a practicing Catholic, taking true joy from celebrating at church each week and fully participating in the church community, I would have given you my best tilted head, raised eyebrow look of disbelief. Born and raised in rural Newfoundland, I am what they call “a cradle Catholic.” I went to a public Catholic school and celebrated all my sacraments, but by the time I was a teenager my family no longer attended church regularly. After I moved off to St. John’s for university I grew even further away from my religion. In my early- to mid-20s I believed myself to be a liberal Catholic. I didn’t agree with the majority of church teachings and lived a secular life. I was also pretty much at rock bottom. After completing my business degree I spent three years working in various call centres and dating one jerk after the next, so I pulled up stakes and moved to Halifax to complete a public relations degree at Mount Saint Vincent.
So what brought me back to church? The simple answer is I got engaged. The very moment I got engaged I was compelled to go back to church—I felt a great want to be married in the church and I knew in order to do that we had to join a parish and start attending once more (my fiance was also a lapsed Catholic).
Today I am an active member of my parish, volunteer youth minister and I work for Chalice Canada, a Catholic charity. I feel blessed to be able to live out my faith in many areas of my life but I also feel like I am living in two worlds.
It will be hard to explain to my future children about the dark moments in the history of church, including the sexual abuse scandals. It is awful that it happened and even worse that it was covered up for so long. However, policies are changing and the criminals responsible are being brought to justice. It is our duty moving forward to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. As horrible as the abuse was it is unfair to insinuate that it happened because priests are celibate or secretly gay. It happened because there were pedophiles who misused their position of authority and it happens every day in schools, universities and youth organizations. It certainly doesn’t excuse what happened, but it is important to separate the criminals from the faith itself.
When Pope Benedict XVI announced he was retiring, I was both shocked and intrigued. After all, pope is usually a forever gig. Personally I applaud Benedict for recognizing that he was aging and no longer able to provide the leadership the church needed.
As expected, speculation erupted in the media with non-Catholics everywhere inserting their opinions that the church needed a new modern pope to finally bring much needed sweeping changes to the Catholic faith. What some people don’t seem to realize is that church doctrine is based on 2,000-year-old teachings and they ARE what it means to be Catholic. The church will never change its base beliefs to suit popular culture.
However, this does not mean that the church is not in need of a revival of faith.
I truly feel in my heart of hearts that Pope Francis is exactly what the Catholic Church needs right now to help restore confidence in the Vatican. The more I read about him, the more excited and hopeful I become. He is humble, modest, a champion for the poor. During his first days in office he refused his papal limo in favour of the cardinal bus, paid his own hotel bill and walked about on Sunday greeting parishioners after mass like any other parish priest. I’m excited at what Pope Francis will bring to the papacy and for the future of the church as a whole.
As for my life, I move forward every day growing in my faith. My hope is that I will encourage others to learn more about the faith before they criticize what they don’t understand or draw conclusions based on what they hear in the media. I am always open to discussing the faith openly in a spirit of discourse and mutual respect. It’s not easy being Catholic in a secular world, but it is totally worth it. a
Heather Little is a marketing campaign coordinator at Chalice Canada. She is happy to
discuss the Catholic faith in an open and respectful manner. You can find her on twitter @PRapproach.
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This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.
Thank you for sharing! A great article and perspective.
I respect your opinion, but I question your statement that the church will never change its base beliefs to suit popular culture.
No one is criticizing your church because it’s not mainstream enough, they’re criticizing it because it’s anti-gay and anti-women.
You’re excited about a leader who takes the bus and pays his own way, but I would think it might be more important for a man whom so many look to for guidance to promote equal rights.
It can be difficult to separate the criminal acts from the faith when the faith itself forces the leaders of the Catholic church into celibacy. In the majority of cases for human beings this is not a natural state. To have a priest, who denies his own basic human needs, be the authority on sexual morals is like getting an anorexic person to plan your meals. They approach the situation from an unhealthy starting point. Eventually they are going to binge and then purge themselves (pray/puke) to make everything better.
I ditched the Papal puke decades ago and not without good reason. As with all religions, the Roman Catholic church was created and controlled by man, a clever ploy at extracting money from its trembling, fearful followers. I’m hoping this Church crashes and burns so I can dance on its ashes gleefully.
I enjoyed your witness, and admire your courage to share your faith with others. You are in keeping with the New Evangelization endorsed by our Archdiocese. We have all suffered from the fall-out of the abuses caused by a very small few, but now we are ready to move forward and build lives based on our faith in Christ and the joy and purpose it brings. Thanks again for sharing.
God be with you in your journey.
Abuse of any or every kind did not originate nor exist in any one particular organization… Pedophiles appear in many different cultures; people who choose their own gender to attempt marriage and raise families as “mom and dad” are trying to fit square pegs in round holes… Sure , have relationships but don’t try to call consumation of a marriage with major purpose to be open to the generation of human brings, don’t try to pervert that vocation with what is against nature itself; if you want so badly for woman to be active in the church…read the scriptures, spend time with and gently discover you role, don’t worry, The Lord will show you. As far as our Catholic faith is concerned, faith is personal and an individual experience of God’ s love that is designed to express itself in relationships.
If a person has never opened the door to the invitation to meet God through Christ, there really isn’t much they can say and if they have done so in truth, they still don’t have too much to say because love is more service and less grumbling .
Your Pope is fine with you, as long as you don’t enter politics:
“The natural order and facts teach us that man is a politician par excellence, the Scriptures show us that women always support thinker and maker of man, but nothing more than that”
– Pope Francis in 2007
Also I wonder if the poster has actually read the bible (a) and (b) believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God:
“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” – 1 Corinthians
and
“All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman” – Ecclesiasticus 25:19
and
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
1 Timothy 2:12
etc…
It is almost like the book was written by a bunch of ancient misogynists.
– A TEXT, TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, IS A PRETEXT, FOR PROOFTEXT … In our postmodern world that we live in everyone has become their own Bible; every man has …FYI…..per passages….really?
As I wrote earlier…. Women and, men can discover their role, who they and why they are here by spending time in prayer and building a relationship with the Creator…there is no need to swing Punches at the air… Just meet your maker 🙂
Any time someone like Ruthalbrecht starts talking earnestly about their faith I can’t help but think they sound batshit insane.
God’s ways are not man’s ways… It easy to see why man struggles to understand …with so many limitations.
Seek your Creator and with God’s grace, you may discover a privileged truth that doesn’t look like “bat shit”
Prayers go out today!