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	Absolute Must Read: Tom Doyle Provides an Intimate Glimpse into His Personal Spiritual Journey Voice from the Desert May 20, 2010 http://reform-network.net/?p=5040 The following very personal note from Tom Doyle about his spiritual journey is an introductory statement to his revised clergy sex abuse bibliography, dated May 20, 2010. * * * The latest version of my on-going bibliography is attached. The new listings, as is usually the case, are in red. There are three new additions I want to comment on. Over the course of my years of involvement with the clergy sexual abuse “happening” I have learned that the damage done to the spirituality of the victims has been considerable and in many ways, more difficult to deal with than either the emotional or psychological damage. The victims are not alone in suffering grave spiritual damage. Many of those directly or even indirectly involved with this whole complex phenomenon have found themselves in a growing quandary with their belief systems. I am one of them. For years my belief system and the objects of my faith were gradually shifting, often in ways I did not even notice. Most of what I had been taught about Faith, about Beliefs, about Trust in the human or earthly dimensions of the community of believers, the institutional Church, came under assault. I had believed what the official church had told me without much questioning. I accepted that the Church was what it was and I bought into all of the standard explanations for the historical departures of the institutional Church and its leaders from basic Christian decency and certainly from honesty…like the inquisition, the crusades, the approval of slavery, the colonization of the new world and the Vatican’s diplomatic ties to Hitler and Mussolini. My serious questioning started when I found myself on the inside looking out as the clergy sex abuse scandal started to unfold back in 1984. As I saw first-hand the duplicity and institutionalized lying of the self-proclaimed “successors of the Apostles” I slowly began to wonder if the apostles weren’t actually a cabal of anti-Christian dolts or on the other hand, I wondered if the infallible connection between the popes, bishops and church monarchy was neither infallible nor divinely willed. It was not exactly a pleasant or secure feeling as my not-quite-paralyzed brain began to ask the inevitable question: “If they can easily lie about raping innocent little children, can they just as easily lie about everything else?” The next stop on the journey was actually the first stop: taking the risk of asking myself what was and was not true and viable about everything else I had been told to believe. I finally paused long enough to let soak in the reality of this deeply embedded dynamic: I (all of us actually) had been consistently told what I must believe. I had never been asked to believe or offered the option of figuring the basics out for myself. ” This no longer worked for me. This is a long introduction to a short book review but hopefully it will put my observations about the three books in a believable perspective. The next stop in the journey necessarily came very soon after the first stop. The second stop was the cognitive and emotional acceptance of my right to question…anything and everything I had been taught that was supposed to be true about the institutional Church, the people running the institutional Church and the entire body of dogmas that were required for membership in the institutional church. Along the way I began to understand what I had for so long taken for granted: that spirituality isn’t an affect, appearance or attitude that some acquired (to their institutional benefit) and others never seemed to “get”, (like me). I began to realize that there was a gaping hole inside of me that had a depth I never thought possible. I tried to fill that emptiness with other things for awhile but none of them worked. I finally realized that spirituality is not something acquired and it certainly cannot be accurately equated with or measured by outward piety. For me, the journey into the realization of my spirituality had to reach the point where I seriously questioned the very existence and nature of God. It was at that stage when I came to the frightening acceptance of my need to get rid of the Catholic god I had feared and find someone or something that made sense. I believe I found it early on in my upward and often steep path through the Twelve Steps. The Higher Power was significantly different from the images of the supreme being I had labored under for most of my life. If the veracity of this Higher Power was in any way demonstrated in the lives of the other people I met at Twelve Step meetings, then I had come upon the real thing. I was and still am left with figuring out where the reality of the Church, religious life and ultimately Jesus Christ fit into a life that has this spirituality as its core. I have tried really listening to others, meditating and reading. All three have been much more helpful than blindly accepting various and sundry ecclesiastically-based pronouncements, dogmas etc. Lately I have read three books that have been a great help to me: Clerical Error by Robert Blair Kaiser. This is his autobiography but its really the story of the journey of a soul. Its highly readable, credible and for me, helpful. Bob Kaiser was a Jesuit scholastic for ten years. He had the unique opportunity to have been Time Magazine’s correspondent at Vatican II and since then has been an eminent journalist, writer, thinker and theologian. His book helped me put a lot of disparate elements together. Bob has helped me believe that true ecclesiastical reform is not only possible but worth hoping for. Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, an author, a spiritual theologian and a contemplative. The two books included in this version of my bibliography, The Wisdom Jesus and The Wisdom Way of Knowing present an image of Jesus that is believable and radically different from the model of a junior God who works for his father, the grave judge, in trying to square off this messy world by way of edicts, threats and punishment. In a nutshell, Cynthia opens the path to accepting Jesus and all he stands for with the heart and not by way of dogma, rules or fear. In conclusion, for those who are also on this journey, I’d highly recommend anything written by John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark and one of the most fearless and believable theologians I have ever encountered. Onward and upward Tom Doyle
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