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You've got to understand: it isn't the pomp of the Roman Catholic Church that puts me off. In the right doses, I like pomp. I have to -- I'm an artist and it's aesthetically pleasing.

I owe my bits of creative skill to the Church, by a remove; if it weren't for Popes and patronage I never would have had books to check out of the library, and I never would've learned how to paint. I like, I love, I live by Western art.

And I love the (totally hidden, deliberately obscured) mystical tradition. I love the Eucharist. I would, in fact, confess that Jesus Christ is Really Present in the Eucharist, at gunpoint: I have reasons to know it's so.

But this chasm between what the Church does and what I believe is no longer supportable. It's dishonorable, and I haven't found a single person who can answer my questions. If I cared less, it would be okay. But I care intensely and it's not bearable. It's been seven years.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm

Isn't that a good write up? I'm going to a Quaker meeting. Pray for me.

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There are 24 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Interesting. Let us know how it goes.

I will.

(BTW, you're confirmed as my guest at San Diego Con if you want to swing by. You'll have your own badge; just go to the pro registation table.)

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Prayer said. You'll be fine; the Society of Friends are a good group of folks.

By the way, it's not so much that your questions are answered, but rather the attitude by TPTB that you HAVE questions...and that you are permitted -- nay, encouraged - to ask them.

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Thank you.

A childhood friend is a Quaker, so I've been to a meeting or two. I like them, on first impression.

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Hrm, indirect input for my question...IIRC when the Spawn took one of those "what religion are you" meme-quizzes she got "Orthodox Quaker". WTF.

More later, but:

ICON!

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I like pomp. I have to -- I'm and artist and it's aesthetically pleasing.

YES!

I like, I love, I live by Western art.

::nods::

And I love the (totally hidden, deliberately obscured) mystical tradition. I love the Eucharist. I would, in fact, confess that Jesus Christ is Really Present in the Eucharist, at gunpoint: I have reasons to know it's so.

I will love you forever for stating this on LJ, a place that's rather religion-free.

But this chasm between what the Church does and what I believe is no longer supportable. It's dishonorable, and I haven't found a single person who can answer my questions. If I cared less, it would be okay. But I care intensely and it's not bearable. It's been seven years.

Oh, dear. I was about to type Oh God, and while vaguely blasphemic, it would have been appropriate, too.

I'm praying for you, Cyn.

Thank you, that means a lot to me.

I'm not at all sure this is the right thing to do... it just feels like the only thing I can do, at this stage. Seven years of struggle's exhausted me.

There's a big emphasis on "perseverance" for someone coming from a monastic tradition... all doubts/conflicts/questions are "temptations" and one's simply supposed to ignore them. I've tried.

If it was a matter of working from within, I'd try to do that -- especially with regard to birth control and the church's attidue toward gays. But the hierarchy keeps making statements that this is what we are bound to believe, so to work against it is, by definition, disobendience, disloyalty and sin.

I just really don't know what else to do. It's very sad.

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Dude, you gotta do what you need. I think Ebonbird, or Ebee, on my flist is a Quaker. You should contact her. She's cool---she's a friend of Starlet's (if you know Starlet).

Please pray for me lots. I'm well aware that the Quakers are unlikely to prove some ideal group with flawless congregations, devoid of all faults, but I have to do something. This whole struggle is just poisoning my spirit, and I can't seem to resolve it within the Church, no matter what I try.

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"If I cared less, it would be okay. But I care intensely and it's not bearable. It's been seven years."

Well said. Sometimes, "tolerance" of the failings and foibles of our religious institutions is just an indicating that we don't think they're important enough or relevant enough to get too upset about.

I like the Quakers' approach to "tolerance" much better: care for persons, and for the Divine within each human, simply outweighs lesser concerns and differences (at least, at its best -- every denomination, sect, or religion suffers from the same disadvantage of being made up of people, who can sometimes be petty and miserable or abusive). I hope and trust that your Seeking will be supported and aided by your new community of faith.

And, Biblically, I think seven years "in bondage" (no smarminess intended) puts you in the clear. After laboring for seven years for Rachel, Jacob was supposed to get his freedom and begin his new life. But there's always somebody, like Laban, who'll try to pull a fast one and get you to commit to another seven years of unproductive labor. You've done your time and have every right to consider this your year of "Jubilee" and a fresh start in your worship life.

I like the Quakers' approach to "tolerance" much better: care for persons, and for the Divine within each human, simply outweighs lesser concerns and differences (at least, at its best -- every denomination, sect, or religion suffers from the same disadvantage of being made up of people, who can sometimes be petty and miserable or abusive).

Absolutely true. I've been a practicing Catholic for twenty years, and until about seven years ago I've been able to take the rough with the smooth on a personal level. When I got booted from the monastery I didn't quit, because it was a merely personal grief.

But these last seven years it's become about what the church teaches -- what the magesterium teaches, what they tell us we MUST belive in order to be Catholic. There's no real option for loyal oppostition, there's no debate. I can't just ignore what I don't like, especially when it directly contributes to what I see as a dangerous inclination (in this country) to scapegoat "outsiders."

I've been reading up on the Quakers, and on paper, at least, these are the very things they abjure.

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As usual, the Rev snuck in with all the smart comments, putting anything I'd think of to say into the shade, so, as someone else who could just no longer support what the Church was doing, I'll offer hugs and good wishes for your quest.

Thank you so much.

The strangest thing of all is that attitudes in the Church actually seem to be moving backward. The Right has manipulated perceptions to the point where lines have been drawn that didn't exist several years ago. On one side you have Pro Family, and on the other side you have -- well, a bunch of people whho are leaving the church. And the Right wing has acquired such a siege mentality (skillfully manipulated by conservatives for their own purposes, and God, the gulibilty of their followers makes me want to scream) that all manner of cruel idiocy is being promoted as vital truth.

At a mass last week the priest inveighed agaist evolution from the pulpit. Yes, evolution, which is a theory fully endorsed by the Catholic church. Evolution was lumped in with abortion, stem cell research, and the (always ill-defined) "attack on the family" as a devil's bookbag of pernicious beliefs out to steal our salvation, ruin our lives, and empty our purses. Jesus.

At another mass a different priest teed off on stem cell research, with grave disregard for any facts whatsoever, that I could see.

And I won't even get into the fact that the laity who eats this up -- the people who plaster their cars with Pro Family stickers and make gays unwelcome -- are the same people who ignore the rules that don't suit them. 80% of lay Catholics in this country use birth control, which makes their communions blasphemous according to church teaching. They support an Administration engaged in an unjust war, and most of them support the death penalty. And they do it with serenity, because the only rules they care about are those that concern others, and which allow them to turn Others into the boogeyman.

Agh, sorry. It's just... I can't get past all this. I've run out of stuff to try.

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Years ago, I hung out with priests and nuns who were incredibly progressive. They envisioned a church where men and women would be treated equally and the focus of their ministry would be helping people live secure and fulfilled lives. One of those priests was a strong influence in my overcoming the homophobia that was part and parcel of the culture I grew up in. Another defined marriage in a way that let me see it as something possible for me--something more than an institution created for raising children and overpopulating the world.

Instead of their efforts changing the Church, the Church has become an unwelcome place for them. I doubt many of them are still serving as clergy. Instead, we have people like the priest who ranted on at the last Mass I attended that Martha, not Mary, had chosen the better way. I sat incredulously listening to a man directly contradict Jesus from the pulpit. I haven't been back since, except for funerals. That's fitting, I suppose, since I've laid my relationship with the Church (but not spirituality) to rest. If they're now preaching against evolution (something I was taught matter-of-factly in Catholic school, with one class discussion about why it was not contrary to doctrine) things are even worse than I thought.

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I sat incredulously listening to a man directly contradict Jesus from the pulpit.

Wow.

If they're now preaching against evolution (something I was taught matter-of-factly in Catholic school, with one class discussion about why it was not contrary to doctrine) things are even worse than I thought.

I heard some pretty whacked out homilies during my time in the monastery. But it seemed like traditional orders attracted the crazier type of priest -- they used to be the exceptions, from my perspective. But in the last few years I've started hearing this right wing lunatic stuff in ordinary parishes, Sunday after Sunday. The examples mentioned above were preached at two very different churches, in the space of a week.

Add that to the pronouncements released by the council of Bishops and the Vatican itself, and it's clearly not just a few enthusiasts, it's a widespread and deliberate shift.

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Did something happen? Or just a general accumulation of feh?

We have some family friends who are Quakers. I don't know much about it, but it seems to work for them. I hope it works for you too.

A general accumulation of feh, really. This has been going on for a long time: years. Birth control, clerical scandal and corruption, hypocrisy, intolerance, a yoke of restrictions the leadership inflicts on the laity but is unwilling to bear itself, and deep loneliness. Oddly enough it was something as trivial as a priest preaching a homily against the theory of evolution that may have finally tore it for me.

Nothing much in itself, just an ill-informed pastor overexcited about the "attack" on "Catholic values" -- and apparently unaware that the Vatican has endorsed the theory of evolution long since -- but it felt like the final stroke of alienation. I just don't feel like I have a place anymore. Apart from my devotion to the sacraments, there's almost nothing in the current church I can can point to and say "credo."

I tried getting involved with a lay group supporting a local nun's order, but they just wanted to talk about women's spirituality, sophia wisdom, seashells and scented candles. There was no substance in it; it didn't help.

I'm still praying; I still hope for a miracle. But I'm just exhausted... it's been seven years of severe doubt and struggle and I can't do it anymore.

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::pets you::

I am envious of folk who are secure in their beliefs. I don't quite know what mine are. I noodled around with the Bahai Faith years ago but found it difficult to commit. I liked (and still like) alot of their teachings, but I had a fair number of 'why' questions that never got answered. Mind you, my conduit to the faith was someone with whom I was having a rather destructive relationship, so perhaps he was not the best person to provide me with answers. Maybe I should try again.

I find it easy to slide through the days caught up in the (mostly) inconsequential details of life. And then I have occasional moments when I see a favourite constellation, or one of the planets in the night sky, or fireflies or deer on the roadside while driving home, and I am reminded of how I felt fuller during my noodling phase (destructo relationship guy was quite well attuned to nature and so, for a time, was I) and I wonder why I am so reluctant to try again.

::sighs::

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I am reminded of how I felt fuller during my noodling phase (destructo relationship guy was quite well attuned to nature and so, for a time, was I) and I wonder why I am so reluctant to try again.

If I may quote some ancient wisdom present in every faith Ive ever read about: Try Again, Try Again, Try Again.

Seriously. For all my LJ angsting, my spiritual life is the wellspring of my being, it's the greatest joy I could ever have imagined. I wouldn't get so fecking het up about it if it weren't so important to me. :) I can honestly say that five minutes of true mystical experience pays for a lifetime of searching -- and it doesn't stop after five minutes, once you're there.

Do try again, in any way that seems good to you. You'll get help, you know. :) A soul awake is a human's natural state, and many benign influences will bend to help you on the way.

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Wow. About that anti-evolution sermon. Is there no way you can stand up in the back of hte church and say "HEY! MORON! THE VATICAN SAYS EVOLUTION IS PERFECTLY OKAY! IT SAID SO TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID? OR DEAF?"

However, I can easily see ow that would be the thing that tore it for you. The blind anti-intellectualism is in the end, a real sin. Stupidity is not a sin, but wilful stupidity is. There is something very, very wrong.

Can you talk to the bishop about this? This guy is preaching anti-evolution and it's, you know, wrong as well as stupid?

I have been to some Quaker meetings and really liked them until they hired some yappy American guy who thought it was his job to yammer on at every meeting. The senior members of the meeting were sitting on him, but I still left. I think he came from a different tradition (there are various, and some of the American ones have regular sermons, precisely what I was there to avoid). But one thing that also contributed to my not staying was that, like the Unitarians, a lot of people that wind up in the Quakers are walking wounded from other denominations, so there was a relatively high preponderance of weirdos. They were, however, very good people; just a little weird. Or maybe I just wasn't ready for that level of spiritual awareness. (Seriously.)

Our new minister is an ex-Catholic woman and she's absolutely wonderful. She said she really tried but there was just no place for strong women in the Catholic church.

Martha chose the better path? Um, hang on? I have used the parable of Martha and Mary as my excuse for an academic life, as it happens. Probably that's not what I was supposed to do, but I did and I'm not sorry. But I bet that priest doesn't want women doing anything subversive like, say, learning to read.

I am sorry, Cyn. What I really think is that after 7 years of labour, you need, perhaps not a departure, but a sabbatical. I get one year off every 7 years too, you know; to refresh my spirit. Take a year, hang with the Quakers, see how you feel, and then, you know, you can visit the Catholic church again. It may have shifted in that time; or something may have relaxed a little, somewhere, and you'll be able to think about it again.

And come up here for a visit! You can come visit my church (and maybe I'd go that Sunday too - might get me out of bed :) Seriously.

love, L

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Is there no way you can stand up in the back of hte church and say "HEY! MORON! THE VATICAN SAYS EVOLUTION IS PERFECTLY OKAY! IT SAID SO TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID? OR DEAF?"

No. There's no way at all. And even less dramatic means, in such cases, are stonewalled. If serious reports of malfeaance are swept under the carpet (as they are -- because a united front is, for the clergy, everything) how much weight do you think they assign to criticism of what a priest says "in his own parish?"

Can you talk to the bishop about this?

At the height of the clerical molestation scandal, an elderly woman in this city wrote a letter saying that the Church should admit it had made mistakes and do everything it could for victims of abuse. That's all. The response? The Bishop publically censured her, and imposed a penance to be performed before she could receive communion again. It made national news. That's our bishop here.

I have been to some Quaker meetings and really liked them until they hired some yappy American guy who thought it was his job to yammer on at every meeting.

That would send me running, too. The one I found locally is silent.

But one thing that also contributed to my not staying was that, like the Unitarians, a lot of people that wind up in the Quakers are walking wounded from other denominations, so there was a relatively high preponderance of weirdos.

Ouch, ouch! I hope they don't think I'm a walking-wounded weirdo: I ceratinly made no secret of my post-Catholicism. I shall have to work very hard at seeming sane and non-threatening. *g*

She said she really tried but there was just no place for strong women in the Catholic church.

Is she married, may I ask? I'll admit that a small part of my alienation is a lack of place: if you're not married or a religious, there's no slot you can fit into, it seems. But that may be just my experience, and it's not the main reason I left. For me it's a matter of conscience about the horrible march to the Intolerant Right.

Take a year, hang with the Quakers, see how you feel, and then, you know, you can visit the Catholic church again. It may have shifted in that time; or something may have relaxed a little, somewhere, and you'll be able to think about it again.

I was lolling in a pool discuissing it with my buddy the other day, and i said something similar. It may be a fantasy, but if the Church by some miracle reversed this trend, I could see myself going back. If they opened a dialogue about responsible birth control, stopped ostracizing gays, stopped supporting wickedness in the political administration to advance their own aims, if they MADE IT LAW that Catholic Hospitals provide Plan B to rape victims in ERs... and on and on. yes, I could see myself going back. I can hardly imagine such a thing, knowing what i know, but I am praying for it.

The ideal, of course, would be to stay and work for change. But you have to understand: things have gotten to such a pass that there are no means to work for change. See the little old lady and her letter: dissent is muzzled. And if loyal dissent is muzzled, and to question is heresy, then I'm only left with my silent presence in the pew. My silence implies consent. I simply can't abide that.

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I just recently discovered that my minister is married; I had no idea. She seemed unmarried, and I'm surprised to realise that I mean by that unfettered and undimmed. I don't know when she married, though, and it may have been after she left the Catholic church.

The Bishop publically censured her, and imposed a penance to be performed before she could receive communion again. It made national news. That's our bishop here.

If it's not possible to influence the debate from within, and if this is the appalling reaction to dissent, then, wow. I see the problem. Whatever do you do?

Um, re: walking wounded, I didn't mean you! I meant, well, feathers braided into blonde male dreadlocks on a 45 year old man. Okay, so I have a low tolerance for fashion statements. But I've also met lots of sane Quakers. Very sane. And I loved the silent meetings. They vary from one place to the next but if you've got a silent one locally, that's my favourite.

Let me know how it goes/went? I didn't make it to church again this morning. I think I need to talk to my husband about going for his run on SATURDAY, so that I can get to church on Sunday even if I can't get my act together to get the children washed and fed and out the door too. Oh, and dressed. Though the whole point is the children,or most of it.

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January