Telling people "WE showed no care for the little ones" (We?)
I read online in some of my groups that people were buying up tickets and planning not to go see the Pope in protest.
It was Nope to the Pope.
On the heels of the American sexual abuse scandal, by Catholic priests, in Pennsylvania. Followed by an expose in Buzzfeed about the horrendous torture and abuse children suffered in Catholic orphanages, I am surprised this pointy hat wearing dude thinks he's welcome anywhere.
Because I have personal knowledge of what went on in an orphanage in Brooklyn, over 100 years ago.
My grandmothers parents came over in the late 1800's from Ireland, hoping for a better life.
What could possibly go wrong?
My great grandparents pro-created like good Catholics should, and tried to eke out a sort of existence in Brooklyn, where the Irish weren't wanted.
My grandmother was the seventh daughter, of a seventh daughter.
It turns out, my poverty stricken great grand parents, could not afford to keep my
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| My Nana |
I don't know what the name of it was or if any of her other brothers and sisters were given away, because my Nana never mentioned any siblings there with her. This was the start of her trauma filled childhood, where she was expected to work for her keep, scrubbing floors and cleaning and being physically abused.
She never mentioned any sexual abuse.
I doubt she would ever speak of such a thing.
She did tell us that she scrubbed floors until her fingers bled. She would cry often about her treatment by the nuns. Up until she was very elderly, her childhood experiences affected her. In turn it affected us.
Because it's traumatic for children to hear of this kind of abuse, that happened to a beloved grandmother.
Then you are rounded up and expected to give thanks and be a good Catholic every Sunday.
My Nana, isn't here to see how the church has been exposed for it's atrocities. So, I will bear witness for her. She is just one of many. I will never truly know the entire story of what happened to her.
To have to suffer, well into your old age because of the trauma my Nana endured, is just heartbreaking. For all I know, she saw children thrown out of windows, like in the Buzzfeed piece above. She probably saw a lot and was told by her abusers not to say anything.
After all, who would believe her?
After my Nana, at the turn of the century, we get to the swinging 60's.
My story with the Catholic church begins.
Corporal punishment was doled out liberally both at school and at home. Nuns really liked using rulers, and they used them on me, for any kind of infraction. My parents didn't care and when the notes from the nuns started coming home about my not being able to learn like other students, well let the beatings begin.
So, I would get it from both fronts. The nuns and at home.
Every note, another beating. Every Sunday go to church.
When you could barely sit down from the punishment you got from the dreaded nuns notes.
There was no such thing as a learning disability in those days. You were just being lazy.
After a year of this torture, the nuns at the Catholic school, ironically, it was called, St. Francis, my mother told me the nuns no longer wanted me there, and I had to be enrolled in public school.
Sadly, it would not be until I went to college and studied art, to have my first positive experience in education. I hated school my whole young life. I didn't even think I was smart enough for college for a long time.
I graduated with honors, no thanks to my first grade abusers. (The abuse didn't end there, but that is for another blog)
Through the years, we were marched to the Catholic church I hated.
Forced to confess our sins, trying to sit still, in those uncomfortable pews.
Until one Sunday, a funny thing happened.
My Dad didn't go up and take communion!
I was in a state of shock!
When I asked my mother, she told me my Dad was "not in a state of grace."
This was very big news, how could that be?
I'll tell you how, because I pestered my mother to explain why Dad could shun communion, but the rest of us had to play along with this whole charade.
She finally had to break down and tell me that my Dad, or the both of them, (not sure which ) was using birth control.
They had 5 kids.
It's not like today, when you plan your pregnancies. (if you have any sort of intelligence)
You just kept churning out babies back then, like you were going to need a bunch of kids working as farm hands. Which is what happened in my family.
My Aunt and my Mom were in some kind of baby making competition, each of them having 5 and one year the babies were born one day apart. But, I digress.
My parents were already finding it hard to go along with these ridiculous medieval rules.
That day, I found out a few things.
There was such a thing as birth control and I could set myself free of the Catholic church.
I told my Mom I was never going back there and I never did.
I was fourteen years old, and well on my way to being the family scandal, scapegoat, whatever you want to call it.
Fast forward, to 2005, my mother had passed away in 2003, and my Dad was ready to remarry.
Oddly enough, he didn't get remarried in the Catholic church he forced us all to go to.
My sister was so scandalized, I guess out of some weird Catholic catechism dogma, she thought Dad was disrespecting mom by remarrying so quick, she cried and carried on to no avail.
Dad had found a new religion and left Catholicism behind.
His new wife was Lutheran and he adopted her religion, which was a bit perplexing, since, I thought being a Catholic was, so important.
You can't make this stuff up!
I like to think we have evolved from the church's vice like grip, at least where my Dad's concerned. However, the reckoning for the church, is not here yet.
The Pope needs to take his show and go away.
Even my Dad has left him in the dust.
In memory of my grandmother O'Leary, I write her story, today. As she was never able to.
Also, testimony of my own abuse, which is nothing compared to the sexual abuse and murder the church has just begun to acknowledge.
If there really is a hell, there's quite a few religious freaks already burning and more to follow.
May God have mercy on their souls, because I don't have any.
Thank you Sinead, for your bravery.
