Back in May of 2009, I got pissed off and wrote an entry on my “a firetender’s blog” entitled Catholic Nuns, Child Abuse and Vows!
People were listening!
- It just now cracked the 500 comment barrier!
Of about 508 posts total, the number of posters has been (about — I counted this by hand as a kind of “honoring” thing) … wait a minute,
I’m going to make you work for this so you can see just how many people to whom this thread is important!
Here are the people who have made this site a living entity! Give ’em a hand (and they’ll give you one; that’s how this site works!)!!!!
START SCROLLING!
caitfinnegan
mark
brian
susanne
pattyann
gary allen
maura hart
c.villanueva
jp
ruth
b.robertson
tamar
kristen
mark s
mario
gern
richard
nancy kimble
dana
colleen
laurie
maureen
christina
shelley
mary rutley
martin
frank
monica
linda
emme
nick
brian f
tea
frank
fran
jane
cat
christine v
christine f
the germanator
angry mom
debbie
cindy l
dora
juna
george
robert g
jack w
nancy k
tom
tomal
florence
harry
carmen
henry
sue r
tony z
verite
tim
rich t
dennis g
trish g
don
joanne
don
rich
marie c
mary a
vincent
rjgodley
ihmscadet
larry
mariol
joey n
lori g
noele
laurance v
andre h
eunece
micahe
michael j
dawyne
rocco
maureen g
dennis
thecentralscrutinizer
sam
gratefulandthankful
patrick paul
richie
mary ellen
john s
mcccmarr
That’s 94 different stories including mine, with some from Australia, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, in the South Americas and other countries I might have missed! This is a worldwide outrage, as we know.
Something I must acknowledge is that my original post was meant to emphasize the incredible discrepancy that happened in violence against young male students vs. our female counterparts.
What an incredible awakening this was for me; fully half of the participants here are women, affirming the unbelievable violence to EVERYONE, that very much included their lifetime horror at having been WITNESS to the abuse of their Brothers! Maybe the girls DID catch it as badly, regardless, we all shared the pain.
There is a huge healing there for me; I always thought they were laughing! Not because I saw them do so, but because my humiliation was meant FOR them to see.
I keep expecting this site to get me in trouble, after all, I’m “going after” the Catholic Church, aren’t I?
In reality, as I keep attempting to make perfectly clear, this is not a movement, it is a safe haven. Let others do the moving! The best I can, and want! to do is to work on being there and monitor a sacred space for others to come to.
I’d love someone or someones to show up and use our stories to — for now, honestly I’d be more than happy to just have — make this an issue as prominent as the Predator Priests thing. During those vulnerable years of the 1940s-1970s, Priests were grossly outNUNbered and the nun’s influence was far more widespread.
I believe the variety of their sicknesses were, as well.
I don’t hold back on my personal opinions and I want it to remain clear that these ARE my personal opinions, and are not meant to substitute for professional counseling, or medical or legal advice and in no way, shape or form reflect the opinions of any person or organization with whom I am associated.
In fact I give myself permission to let my anger and bile flow vividly here because there are many thousands out there who were taught (as I was) to stuff it. “Anger is not Godlike!” we were told; some of us while being beaten.
The truth is, my anger and outrage at my abuse at the hands of Catholic nuns that began more than fifty years ago is the greatest gift that God ever gave me and the foundation of what has grown into compassion!
Nope! I don’t forgive the wretched souls, that’s not MY job. The best I can do is forgive ME for all the “S-turns” I had to take to get here. But here is okay, really and you want to know why?
Through it all, I’ve not become them.
I could NEVER willfully inflict the pain on them that they inflicted on me. I would never choose to go back to THEIR childhoods and torture them in the ways I was, precisely because I KNOW what it feel like to have your soul shredded; they taught me!
The difference between me and them is this: I am convinced every one of these violent nuns were abused themselves as children and probably in horrific ways even I can’t imagine! If they recalled their own pasts at all, it was so they could act out what was done to them. They chose to forget what shit like that does to you.
I DIDN’T forget what that felt like, so I’ll stand in the way of anyone trying to abuse the innocent. Maybe here what I’m doing is showing my compadres/madres that we don’t have to beat OURSELVES up anymore. We’re STILL (metaphorically) innocents!
Me and everything I am is here because of my anger and compassion; they have saved me!
I just so want to honor each and every one of you for having taken the time (and in many cases opened up old wounds!) to show up and share. I know what a challenge it must have been, because I did it too!
And the way that so many of you really, REALLY work with each other to help each other get through traumatic memories or “Why’s?” and “What Next’s?” really blows my mind!
You’ve ALL made this one simple blog-entry worth coming home to again and again!
I won’t make any guesses as to what the future may bring. As I’ve said in the past, I’m not here to become a politician, lawyer or priest for that matter to fight the windmill called the Catholic Church.
I’m here to maintain a space where the ripped-off can come for some conversation and compensation!
Yes, the compensation on this site is finding others like yourselves who are building solid lives for themselves DESPITE the trauma they experienced. If this site does no more than provide a place for people abused by the nuns of the Catholic Church to see that what they went through was REAL, then it’s doing its job!
So keep supporting each other, telling your stories and facing what happened so we all can keep turning this shit into diamonds!
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