Patheos (blog)
December 4, 2020
By Gabriel Blanchard
Lost Lambs
Well, we’ve got to go somewhere from here. Here sucks.
Several people I know have left the Church over this. I’m not sure whether any of my acquaintances have left the faith altogether over it, but that wouldn’t surprise me. People have killed themselves over this. If the hypothesis set forth in The Keepers is correct, priests have murdered people over this.
A lot of Catholics say if a person leaves because of sin in the Church, it shows that their faith was in the Church instead of in God. That is an extremely fucked up attitude. Of course people had faith in the Church. She told them to. The Catholic Church claims to be guided by the Holy Ghost, protected from doctrinal error. It’s devastating to find out that anyone told you bald-faced lies to protect the man who raped your child. How the hell do you reconcile that betrayal with those claims to divine authority? How dare we try to shame people for not being able to do it?
When a wolf chases a lamb away from the flock, you don’t blame the lamb. If you find it with a mangled leg, you don’t grab it by that leg. If it bleats in terror, you don’t tell it to shut up and be grateful you found it.
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