I have been Catholic for every day of my life.

I was baptized at three weeks old in the same parish where my parents were married.

I taught religious education to second graders for fifteen years.

I sang alto in the choir.

I raised my two kids to love the Mass and trust their priests.

If you had told me I would ever seriously think about leaving the Church, I would have laughed in your face.

And then I almost did.

The Morning I Read the News

I remember exactly where I was.

Sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, scrolling through the news before work.

Story after story about clergy who had abused children.

And worse, story after story about bishops who knew, and moved those men around, and said nothing.

I had heard about the scandals before.

Somehow I had kept them at arm's length.

That morning, I couldn't anymore.

I thought about my own children.

I thought about the second graders I'd taught, sitting in a circle on the carpet, learning that a priest stands in the place of Jesus.

I thought about the victims, children who trusted the Church the way I did, and were betrayed in the worst way imaginable.

I put my coffee down and cried.

Then I got angry.

The Months I Stayed Away

That Sunday, I didn't go to Mass.

Or the next.

Or the next.

I quit the choir.

I told the religious education director I needed a break, and I didn't say why.

My husband kept taking the kids.

I stayed home.

I'll be honest about what I was feeling.

I felt like a fool.

I had given my whole life to an institution whose leaders had protected themselves instead of protecting children.

Friends who had left the Church years earlier told me they had been right all along.

Part of me thought they were.

I started looking up other churches.

I even visited one, a friendly place with a nice pastor and a great coffee bar.

Everyone was kind.

But I sat there the whole service with an ache I couldn't name.

What I Missed

It took me a few weeks to figure out what that ache was.

I missed the Eucharist.

Not the building.

Not the choir.

Not the people, though I missed them too.

I missed Jesus, really present on the altar, the way I had believed since I was seven years old.

Those men had betrayed my trust.

But had He?

That question kept me awake at night.

To Whom Shall We Go?

One night, I opened my Bible to the sixth chapter of John's Gospel.

It's the chapter where Jesus tells the crowd that He is the bread of life, and that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Many of His disciples couldn't accept it.

They turned around and walked away.

Jesus looked at the twelve apostles who were left and asked if they wanted to leave too.

And Peter answered with the question that stopped me cold.

Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

I must have read that line twenty times.

Peter, the same man who would later deny Jesus three times.

Peter, the first pope, who failed spectacularly and was forgiven.

He didn't stay because the people around him were perfect.

He stayed because there was nowhere else to find Jesus like that.

A Saint Who Didn't Stay Quiet

A few weeks later, an old friend from choir sent me a book about Saint Catherine of Siena.

She lived in Italy in the 1300s, a time when the Church was a mess.

The popes had been living in France for decades instead of Rome.

Corruption was everywhere.

Catherine was a young laywoman with no title and no power.

And she wrote letters to the pope himself, telling him to stop being a coward and come home to Rome.

She didn't leave the Church.

She fought for it.

She loved it enough to demand that it be holy.

That's when I realized there was a third option I hadn't considered.

I didn't have to choose between pretending nothing was wrong and walking away.

I could stay, and refuse to be quiet.

Going Back

I went back to Mass on a Saturday evening, alone, and sat in the back.

When the priest raised the host, I wept.

Not from anger this time.

From homesickness finally ending.

Afterward, I asked to speak with our pastor.

I told him everything, the anger, the months away, the other church.

He didn't defend anyone.

He didn't make excuses.

He looked at me and said that my anger was right, and that the sins of those men had wounded the whole Body of Christ.

Then he said that Judas was one of the twelve, and the Church has had to reckon with betrayal from the very beginning.

Christ didn't abandon His Church because of Judas.

And He wasn't going to abandon it now.

What Staying Looks Like

I stayed.

But I didn't stay the same.

I went through our diocese's training on protecting children, and now I help lead it for the volunteers at our parish.

I pray every day for the survivors of abuse, by name when I know them.

I ask hard questions at parish meetings.

I've written letters to our bishop, Catherine-style, though I try to be a little more polite.

And I'm back in the choir, singing alto in the second row.

I still get angry.

I don't think that's a sin.

I think it's love that refuses to look away.

If You're Thinking About Leaving

If you're where I was, I'm not going to tell you your anger is wrong.

It isn't.

I'm not going to tell you the hurt isn't real.

It is.

I'm only going to ask you the question Peter asked.

To whom shall we go?

Men failed me.

Jesus never did.

And He is still there, on every altar, waiting for you.

Theresa is a composite character, and this story is illustrative, inspired by the real experiences of many Catholics who have wrestled with whether to stay in the Church.

Your turn: Have you ever wrestled with whether to stay in the Church? What kept you here? Share your story in the comments below.