I was happy to read that the Vatican is “struggling” with sex cases. The Vatican deserves to struggle, given how long these issues have persisted, in too many cases without ever having been appropriately addressed. Even worse, the survivors of such abuse have been forced to try to move forward with their lives without ever having been acknowledged or receiving recompense.

All of us who have continued to attend services and provide monetary support to the church have tacitly enabled these crimes! Despite having been a lifelong practicing Catholic, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade made possible by the recently appointed right-wing Catholics on the Supreme Court, has given me more than sufficient cause to withdraw from the church.

My religious beliefs have not changed, but I will no longer provide financial or personal support for an institution that is so very guilty of the “Do as I say, not as I do” admonition. I am finished with the Roman Catholic Church and its whited sepulchres of clergy, the overwhelming majority of them male, who have set themselves up as arbiters of morality, when so clearly they do not follow either God’s laws or those of man.

Catherine Marshall

Gales Ferry