On January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe's Spotlight Team released an article that would forever alter the face of the Church and tarnish the reputation of the Catholic Archdiocese. Considering the vast amount of devout followers worldwide, the shock alone sent a metaphorical shotgun heard around the world, with many left to speculate whether such horrendous and amoral accusations were indeed true, and if so, what could have compelled such betrayal from the higher level archdiocese and key members of communal priests, betrayal not only to the community, but above all, to the innocence of the children for decades.

As a young child, I spent many years in Catholic School, 3rd-8th grade specifically, from 1993-1998. We routinely attended church and our principles were founded on what any typical Catholic school would base their moral grounds and virtues- faithfulness to God, well mannered behaviors, and levels of superior academics. My personal experience in a private Catholic school was positive and enriching, but stories of sexual abuse by priests were unfounded during my innocent exposure to Catholic School life, and such an atrocity would have been unspeakable. As far as we were concerned, Catholicism was a devout religion and lifestyle of virtue and purity to God, and as a young child, why would you want to feel any different about such matters?

It was not until I became a teenager that I began to question the morality of Catholicism, as I began to encounter on a personal and societal level the amount of hypocrisy intertwined with this life, the adultery, the betrayal, the fraudulent lifestyle that committed to being a "devout Catholic" as a facade, only until Sundays. When confession took place, it was as though previous sins were completely disregarded. To my own surprise, some of the most hypocritical people I had ever encountered in my life associated themselves to the Catholic religion and I found it perplexing at all costs.

It was due to this immense hypocrisy, that I chose to disassociate myself from the Catholic religion, even questioning the idea of the physical being known as God, and associating the notion of his existence as more of a conceptualized being to subconsciously control society and provide the masses with something of which to believe. When the revelation of the Spotlight team was revealed, I could only question, "If God really did exist, why would he let this occur to children?... Because maybe he really doesn't exist and humans are just malicious people who do this to one another, to children, no less."

According to an interview with Pope Francis in May of 2017, a blatant acknowledgement of a 2,000 case back log (at the time) was in the administrative process for sex abuse cases, and many members of the community have criticized the Church for its lack of urgency in handling such matters, as well as an "unacceptable" resistance to devote appropriate care in implementing better treatment for those victims who had been courageous enough to come forward following the molestation.

A recent article in August of 2018, published reports of an 884 page report, the largest investigative and comprehensive report on church sexual misconduct, revealed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General, disclosed over 1,000 victims located in six different dioceses, but there is speculation that the numbers may be increasingly misguided and the accuracy may be at a much higher percentage, which leaves the community to wonder, "what does Catholicism really mean" and "could this potentially affect my child?"

Although the action of one is not representation of the entire Catholic community, if you have spent your entire life as a Catholic, it's fair to state that bearing the audacity to judge anyone else in the wake of this religious hypocrisy only makes you a contemptible and vile human being.