By Jennifer Hartline, Crisis Magazine, Sept. 2, 2022
Jennifer Hartline is a wife, mother, and a daughter of the Church. She is a contributor to The Stream, Catholic Stand, and Catholic Online.
I am a different kind of Catholic now than I’ve been all my life. Whether that’s good or bad will depend on me and how much I cooperate with God’s grace.
I’m an angry, disgusted Catholic these days. I’m stunned, horrified, furious, and grieved. The past decade has been brutal.
I admit I was ignorant for a long time. I know the Church is both “Spirit and mud,” as Deacon Keith Fournier explains it. But I did not know the mud was so deep, so toxic. I trusted that the men in priestly collars—and especially those in miters—were genuine in their faith, pure in their love for God, sincere in their desire to serve. I trusted that they were, indeed, shepherds. I never thought they could be wolves in disguise. …