Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Faith Comes By Hearing

Faith Comes By Hearing

Last updated on: October 4, 2016 at 11:21 am by Mary Pezzulo

Faith Comes By Hearing 2016-10-04T11:21:45-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Robert Nanteuil (French, 1623 - 1678 ), Ecce Homo, 1653, engraving, Rosenwald Collection 1943.3.6435

Robert Nanteuil (French, 1623 – 1678 ), Ecce Homo, 1653, engraving, Rosenwald Collection 1943.3.6435

Father Reginald* was a young Franciscan priest in a long brown cassock, with sandals on his feet and three knots on his belt to represent the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Father Reginald was also very tall and spare with buzzed hair and a short brown beard. He didn’t look much like the real Saint Francis is supposed to have looked, but he looked quite a bit like the standard kitschy representations of Saint Francis on prayer cards. I was sitting in his office on the modest, vow-of-poverty-appropriate sofa, clutching a small icon of Christ blessing the children in my jacket pocket, my eyes welling up with tears, and Father Reginald was bawling me out.

“You should never tell anyone that you suffer from flashbacks,” he said. “Not your friends, not a priest, not anyone. Not to ask for prayers. Emotional suffering is NOT the same as physical suffering. No one should know that except your therapist and, I guess, maybe your husband.” Before he allowed me to leave his office, he insisted on saying a prayer asking the Most High and Glorious God to fill me with perfect charity.

In the following weeks, Father Reginald did everything in his power to separate me from my only friends in the community, passive aggressively forbidding me to meet them in certain places or talk about what he’d said with anyone. I begged him to stop, but that made matters worse. And then I made the mistake of telling people what he was doing to me. After that, at five separate Masses in a row, he managed to accidentally refuse me Communion– no celiac chalice for my allergy, giving the only low-gluten Host to an altar server, a different reason every time. To this day, I can’t look at a kitschy prayer card of Saint Francis or a priest in that cassock with the three-knot belt without cringing. And I would rather die than repeat that prayer about perfect charity.

I’ve seen a meme circulating on Facebook lately; perhaps you’ve seen it as well. “Church hurt: if being hurt by church causes you to lose faith in God, your faith was in people not in God.” I presume “Church Hurt” is standard jargon in some circles, but I’ve never heard of it before. I can’t say where this meme originated, but it has to be spoken out against whenever it’s shared. Because that meme is nothing but a cruel, victim-blaming lie.

People learn about God from Creation and, most of the time, from other people. This is not a bug; it’s a feature. Christ Himself commanded the disciples to preach the Gospel to others. He could have appeared to each person individually, but He chose to send spokespeople instead. Yes, sometimes God intervenes miraculously. Sometimes an unbeliever is struck blind by a vision of Christ and converted on the spot. Usually, though, we learn about Christ from Christians. My friend who was nonreligious but was abused for years by her boyfriend’s Catholic family did not become a Christian; instead, she became very opposed to organized religion for a very long time. This was not because of a lack of faith on her part. It was because she did what humans do– she learned about Christ from Christians. And based upon what Christians told her through their actions, Christ appeared to be a fraud. My other friend, who was bullied mercilessly in Catholic schools until she was withdrawn in the sixth grade, also learned that the Christ they worshiped was a fraud. I’ve met two people recently who left their faith because of how the people in their church responded to their mental health struggles– how could a God that had no help or love for His children suffering that terrible cross be anything but a fraud? And I have other friends who witnessed the hypocrisy of Catholics in Traditionalist and homeschooling circles and are still very angry at the Church.

Refusing to follow someone you’ve come to believe is a fraud, is not a lack of faith. If anything, it’s a very strong choice to turn from what you’ve found to be evil and toward what you’ve found to be good, an act with morally good intention. The fault in these situations is not with the person who turned away from what they had been shown was a fraud. It is with the Catholics who, through their words and actions, presented Christ as a fraud.

Very well, one might say, but can’t they just learn about Christ from other, more honest Christians? If you’ve been taught the teaching of Christianity and found it to be true, can’t you cling to firm faith in the face of unfaithful Christians?

Yes, theoretically, you could. But to say that everyone can do that automatically is to completely misunderstand how humans react to abuse. When someone is hurt, their whole being– their mind, their brain, their instincts– cling to that hurt. That’s not holding a grudge, it’s survival. It’s the natural way to avoid being hurt a second time. A woman who was sexually assaulted on a soft saggy mattress may have an aversion to sleeping on soft saggy mattresses afterwards– even if she knows rationally that she is safe, she will not feel safe. This is not because she’s insane, but because her memory is doing what it’s supposed to do. People instinctively store memories of extreme hurt or danger, and when given similar data they respond in panic and terror to avoid being hurt. I know logically that Saint Francis and the Franciscan orders do not hate people who have been victims of abuse– considering how Saint Francis was treated by his father, it would be ludicrous for me to think that. But of course, I cringe away from Franciscan priests and would never go to one for help if I was abused again. That’s because my body and mind are working to protect me from ever running into another Father Reginald. My friend who was molested in the confessional by a Legionaries of Christ priest still fears Confession, and only goes to liturgies in the Byzantine rite parish because the Latin rite is so triggering to her. This isn’t because there’s something wrong with my friend. It’s because she suffered horrific abuse in a confessional, and her body and mind are working to prevent that abuse from happening again. It is possible to train the mind and body to let go of trauma reactions, but this is an extremely painful and time consuming process. And it has nothing, nothing in the world, to do with faith in God. Except in the case of a certified miracle, Faith in God will not remove a bear trap from your ankle, it won’t remove a bullet from your brain and it won’t remove a trauma reaction either. Lack of faith does not cause trauma and faith alone will not directly heal it.

Christ– Christ, the impossibly merciful One who readily forgave the men who tortured Him to death, Christ the Meek and Humble of Heart, Christ the Shepherd who laid down His whole life for us errant sheep– this same Christ had nothing kind to say to those who drive people away from the Church. Whatever will become of them, we know on the authority of Christ that drowning at the bottom of the sea would be better. I know of nothing He said to condemn those who run away because of abuse. I pray that the Good Shepherd will find them and remove the bear trap of trauma from their hearts, and I pray that I will never be guilty of placing that trap for anyone. I pray for mercy for any time I have, accidentally or through my sins, represented Christ as a fraud. And to those who have left the Church: I know it wasn’t because you lacked faith. I respect your spiritual journey and I empathize with your suffering. May we all be healed. And may we one day find our way to perfect Charity.

*Father’s name and certain characteristics have been changed because he’s not the point.

(Image via the National Gallery of Art)

Previous Post

April 5, 2016

The Unprofitable Servant

Next Post

April 7, 2016 Man Judges Comically; God Sees the Heart

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who provided bread and Goliath's sword to David at Nob?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jonathan Ahimelech the priest Abner Abiathar