Against Crippled Religion

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[T]he consequences of having your rational intellect divorced in some way from your being—divorced enough so that it actually questions the utility of your being. It’s not a good thing.

It’s really not a good thing because it manifests itself not only in individual psychopathologies, but also in social psychopathologies. That’s this proclivity of people to get tangled up in ideologies, and I really do think of them as crippled religions. That’s the right way to think about them. They’re like religion that’s missing an arm and a leg but can still hobble along. It provides a certain amount of security and group identity, but it’s warped and twisted and demented and bent, and it’s a parasite on something underlying that’s rich and true.

I think it’s very important that we sort out this problem. I think that there isn’t anything more important that needs to be done than that. I’ve thought that for a long, long time, probably since the early ‘80s when I started looking at the role that belief systems played in regulating psychological and social health. You can tell that they do that because of how upset people get if you challenge their belief systems. Why the hell do they care, exactly? What difference does it make if all of your ideological axioms are 100 percent correct?

People get unbelievably upset when you poke them in the axioms, so to speak, and it is not by any stretch of the imagination obvious why. There’s a fundamental truth that they’re standing on. It’s like they’re on a raft in the middle of the ocean. You’re starting to pull out the logs, and they’re afraid they’re going to fall in and drown. Drown in what? What are the logs protecting them from? Why are they so afraid to move beyond the confines of the ideological system? These are not obvious things. I’ve been trying to puzzle that out for a very long time.

— Jordan Peterson

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I don’t like getting overly personal, because I don’t like making things about me. I much prefer to ponder ideas than constantly make myself a reference point. When we talk about things that have happened to us, particularly negative things, some people naturally recoil.

Here’s the thing: experience changes us. Experience creates our stories. And I have a story to tell right now that, if I’m being honest, is very difficult for me. It’s about something I’m just starting to understand about my own life, and it requires a level of vulnerability that even I, a guy who has been doing online confessional writing for nearly two decades, don’t feel comfortable with.

But it’s important. It’s fundamental to who I am, where I’m going, and whether or not you might choose to continue to listen to anything else I have to say. And if you’re struggling with anything like the same things I am, maybe you need to to hear you’re not alone.

So let’s talk about anger, spiritual abuse, and crippled religion.

As I sit down to write this, I’m so unbelievably angry.

I’m angry because I’ve spent my life trapped within various ideological subsets of Catholicism that subvert autonomy, critical thinking, and reason itself.

I’m angry because I can’t take another second of clericalism — and by that I mean, “I’m a member of the ordained clergy, so you can never speak a negative word about me and I get to order you around and do whatever I want to you because of my God-given authority.”

I’m angry because I bought into this stuff like my eternal life depended on it for most of the past 40 years, and it did damage to me over and over again. It was used to manipulate me, it was used to make me feel guilty, it was used to make me fall in line, it was used to capitalize on my fear of offending God, and ultimately, of eternal punishment. It, along with some other issues stemming from my childhood, made me afraid. And perpetual fear often manifests as chronic anxiety and constant anger. The anger I’m talking about isn’t the righteous sort I’ll be discussing today, but the sort of aimless, destructive rage that seeks to inflict our inner pain on others, or helps us to overpower our fear of others being angry with us. Think of the child who is so afraid to express his feelings to his parents that he can only do it when he’s so angry that he’s screaming. Multiply that times a lifetime.

The relentless presence of those emotions in my life, seemingly without connection to any immediate cause, hurt me psychologically, damaged my health, and worst of all, caused me to treat people I love very poorly. Inexcusably so. I lashed out at them. I have existed in a constant state of pain avoidance for as long as I can remember, and that makes you incredibly selfish. It’s a miracle that I have received so much forgiveness. I didn’t deserve it, but I am grateful.

I’m angry because this isn’t just an abstract conversation for me at this moment. It’s concrete. I was spiritually abused as a young man by priests in the Church, and I suddenly find that it’s happening again, when I thought it was far behind me. My young, inexperienced, and frankly arrogant pastor has overstepped his canonical authority and denied sacraments to my children — a Baptism for my soon-to-be born son, and a First Holy Communion for my 8-year old. Why? Because my family hasn’t been physically present at our parish enough during COVID for his liking, even though there’s a dispensation in place. His reasoning, reached entirely without a second of consultation with me, is that he’s not sure my children are getting a “good Catholic upbringing.” He has never so much as once reached out to myself or my wife to express this alleged concern, and had to be chased for months to get an answer about sacraments in the first place. He knows nothing of our observance at home, or why we’re not there. He’s merely taken it upon himself to issue declarations, based solely on his own rash judgment.

I’m angry because when families attend his little parish, more than half of them have to sit packed into the parish hall, telling their children to kneel down in front of the all-powerful television screens on which the Mass is livestreamed from the chapel, and it’s been this way for years. Since long before COVID. In his view, it appears to be OK that the bishop kept us in this situation for far too long, in a highly dangerous neighborhood where one of our priests was murdered, another shot, and even our present pastor assaulted. Although his requests for help fell on deaf ears until very recently, when an old, neglected, closed down parish was finally offered, we were told from the pulpit that we should be so grateful to the bishop for allowing us to have the Latin Mass out of his great beneficence — as though the bishop has a right to say no — and that we should generously give money to his appeal instead of putting it into a much-needed building fund. The message was clear: we should sit like dogs begging for scraps from the table, and like it.

But somehow, livestreaming from home with the bishop’s permission instead of livestreaming from the parish hall makes you a bad Catholic.

I’m angry because this isn’t some “modernist” priest, but a priest of the FSSP, an order I have promoted for many years. People love to tell you, “Just find a TLM community if you want to escape the madness in the Church!” But that’s a lie, as many people have found out in various ways. And of course, our pastor knows that he’s the only game in town, unless you count the SSPX, which he believes is a completely invalid option. In fact, he’s gone out of his way to make sure others who have left his parish to go the SSPX knew they were no longer in good standing in his eyes, and could no longer receive sacraments from him.

I’m angry because he thinks this gives him power and leverage, instead of making his humility and example absolutely paramount.

I’m angry because he refuses to apologize for how atrociously he has handled this, and my discussion of the matter with his superiors indicates to me that the situation will likely never be satisfactorily resolved. And even if it were, the results of having to do battle over so basic a need will leave feelings of begrudging contentiousness hanging over what should have been joyful occasions.

I’m angry that I had to fight this battle in the first place — it’s bizarre to think that it’s happening to me — when what should have happened was actual pastoral outreach from a man who has eaten at my table and is ostensibly concerned about my soul. The best we got was a vague demand for a meeting, sent through his secretary, with no explanation as to why, even though we asked multiple times. When he finally did answer, months later, he insulted us as parents, and as Catholics, and declared that his decision had already been made.

I’m angry because I no longer even want to make an effort to work with clergy who act this way, and that leaves me up the sacramental creek.

I’m angry because 24 years after I escaped the Catholic cult known as the Legionaries of Christ, where I was lied to and manipulated in spiritual direction, I am still dealing with this clerical hubris, and my family is now being abused along with me.

I’m angry because I have been so conditioned to respect and demur to Catholic priests that my refusal to allow my family to be abused in this way, and my subsequently forceful objection to this absurd injustice, feels like an act of outrageous rebellion. Somehow, I’ve gotten it in my head that anyone who has a grievance with their personal treatment by members of the clergy who are not actual predators must either lie down and take whatever is done to them, or only whisper their objection in the meekest of terms.

Standing up and saying no feels like an unforgiveable sin.

I’m angry because at times I find I’m worrying more about the rules concerning whether I’m allowed to baptize my child myself — whether this constitutes a case of necessity — than about the fact that I’m in this predicament. I’ve been in a rules and regulation cult my entire life. An idolatry of the law. I’m terrified to break those rules, even though his refusal is a direct violation of canon law.

I’m angry that my big-hearted and eager boy, Liam, who already missed his First Communion last year because of COVID, is going to go without it again this summer as he approaches 9 years of age, while every pro-abortion Catholic politician in this country WILL be allowed to receive. After all, the only discipline in the Church is for those who are struggling to do the right thing and figure out how to navigate the crisis of faith the current state of affairs is inflicting on them. Those who brazenly defy the Church are allowed to do whatever the hell they want, with no temporal consequences.

As I look outward, away from my personal life, I’m angry about a great deal that’s still happening in the Church: the ongoing corruption, the bishops who don’t give a damn, the deeply troubling pope, and the way so many Catholics are lining up in tribal lockstep behind anyone who says what they want to hear, even when there are warning signs that they should not be trusted. To make matters worse, there’s a segment of the commentariat that cashes in on these hot button issues, whipping people into a frenzy for clicks and profit, taking them on a rollercoaster from one outrage to another. Discord and dissent are a cottage industry, and business is booming. (I’ve done this too, thinking it was my duty. It’s my hope that I’ve left it in the past.)

I’m angry because I feel as though we’ve all been abandoned and left to the wolves, and it’s incredibly frustrating to watch as people turn to this increasingly uncritical tribalism to feel safe, or conspiracy theories to “explain” things, or even in some cases an explicit desire for the end of the world so that the madness will finally cease.

I’m angry because my entire identity, my entire life, has been inextricably intertwined with Catholicism, and as all of this collides and comes apart, I feel as though that identity is being flayed from me, one strip of flesh at a time.

I’m angry — but perhaps even more sad — because I have begged God to help me find my way through all this mess, to do the right thing, and to hold on to my faith, but I get no perceptible answer, and I don’t know where to go from here.