Sacrament of Reconciliation

Coming soon! I’m organizing my screenshots of what Catholics have said to me on social media, and screenshots of primary sources from my nightmare experiences in the Archdiocese of Toronto and the Diocese of Peterborough.

I think about all this as I sit at the foot of the Cross, in the presence of God. Looking at situations in the Light of Christ reveals cobwebs, mold, broken parts that were patched but not healed.

I have shared tidbits of my experience on social media, which happens to be the only place I have to interact with Catholics thanks to the retaliation and ostracism I’ve experienced. I’m in Canada and it seems Dioceses had a lot of secrets to hide (abuse, partisan politics, tribalism, territorialism) that prevented them from being able to genuinely welcome people seeking God, seeking meaning, seeking catechesis, seeking spiritual refuge.

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1st Devereaux before baptism who tells me God is my conscience and talks to me in a patronizing voice like I’m an idiot. He walks me through the first five Commandments, doesn’t listen to the one f-cking thing I wanted to say, and then cuts it short because he arrived at the parish late.
2nd Smullen at St Peter’s Day of Grace
3rd John from India who tells me ‘I have no idea what to say. Go to Jesus.”
4th Eades from Holy Family
5th Roche covers all our Saturday conversations ‘under the Seal’
6th Ray from the Philippines, at St Peter-in-Chains after Roche tells me I need to ‘go to confession’ before registering in Summer School at the Oratory

What happened to me is absolutely cruel and abusive insistence that I “go to confession” by conservative men in their 60s and 70s up, traumatizing me, refusing to listen to me without it being “under the Seal”. Deirdre Thomas stared at me at one meeting in 2019 that Robyn Henighan was also at, at the Pastoral Centre, and said to me, “They won’t deny the Sacraments, Jen.” I had no idea what was going through her conniving brain, and she wouldn’t elaborate.