My Damascus Road Experience and the Return Journey Home to Catholicism.

The last several months found me very angry and distraught - with good reason. My state of mind was a result of my catholic anger getting the best of me and for this I have no regrets, apologies nor misgivings.

I listened to my anger and I found my voice and in this voice my calling to action and embarked on a personal journey whose first step encouraged me to leave the Church I have called home all my life. For those who are still wrapping their heads around the previous statement, here is a clarification: Yes, I left my Catholicism in search of answers and reconciliation!

In the months I have spent outside the Church I have used to engage my friends within the magisterium, to evaluate my faith and understand what it is that makes me very angry about what happened within the Church and mostly who most of the victims were and then the cover up took the proverbial cake!

At the very onset, I thought my anger was Unchristian, but upon further review, I remembered what they taught us in our early days in Sunday school. There were moments when Jesus was very angry and even acted on his anger. I am not claiming to be Him or even BLACK JESUS , that title has already been taken by RG III, but rather pointing out the fact that even in his own infinite wisdom, Jesus was angry at times. His anger was righteous and always in defense of others and never of himself.

I am writing today not because I intend to beat Catholicism to a pulp, I am writing because I believe in the Holy Catholic and apostolic church. I am writing because in my travels in search of answers I came across what I was once taught was one of the principal texts of the Second Vatican Council 'Lumen Gentium - The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church'.In its Chapter 4 section 33, the laity are called to defend the Church's primary mission of salvation.'Consequently, may every opportunity be given them so that, according to their abilities and the needs of the times, they may zealously participate in the saving work of the Church' the text directly asserts.

In my studying of the above text, a direct call to arms in defense of the faith of our parents, I had my'Damascus Road Experience'I realized that this Second Vatican Council's central document as promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1964 challenges the laity to hold accountable those within the same Magisterial hierarchy it establishes in matters concerning the well being of the Church - the bride of Christ.

I am making my amends to return home to seek to remedy the situation from within. I do not claim to have all the answers but the fact that it is hard, will not deter me from trying. Catholicism is more than the profession of faith and Sunday Masses, It is a way of life. I have no regrets about my anger, infact I consider it a gift from above and my own World view, God's misgivings with our past.

I am coming home where I belong, I return home battered but stronger, shaken but resolute, having doubted but in firm belief that the Church will weather the storm but it will take more than empty promises and moribund philosophies to reclaim her lost glory. It will take faith and action and the buck stops at we, the faithful.