Book Review: "Prey Tell" By Tiffany Bluhm

 

Allow me to entertain you with some personal experiences of my own.

As a 20 year volunteer and Points of Light recipient I can emphatically tell you that women are being preyed upon and forced into silence in churches.

As the only female usher and minister of hospitality at St. Ignatius of Loyola, in Kingston, Pennsylvania for almost two full years, without ever a complaint, and with nothing but compliments, I found a different side of these older white male ushers.

One day I walked into Sunday Mass like any other day only this day wasn't any other day.
The collection basket was ripped from my hands by three older male ushers. I was treated as if I didn't belong. The priest acted as if he never saw me before volunteering even though my name was on file as a volunteer and I wore a Minister of Hospitality pin on my attire every single Sunday.

The vicar was contacted after this happened along with the Bishop. No apology other than to note, 'these men need time to come around to this new line of thinking.'

Really?

I was humiliated, degraded, and have never stepped foot in this church other than to attend my daughter final years of high school and once she graduates I'm leaving the church for good.

At one of these events I asked the priest to save my bread during communion for the other female ushers that would come long after I'm gone.

This apparently upset him and within 11 days I received a letter stating it was brought to their attention that I'm no longer a parishioner even though my three kids all attended this church, received baptism/communion/confirmation and even the Bishop Youth Award just days prior to this letter being sent for my second eldest daughter.

On a different note, the reason it bothered me so much was because I was already trying to get over two other major issues of abuse from the church.

One was with a different priest attempting to 'groom' my older teen son with expensive gifts that were sent to my home.

The key was I was able to intercept the packages and learned this man was taking advantage of my son's kindness. This priest actually noted to my son that he was severely depressed among other more serious allegations and so I returned the gifts to my ex-spouse to give back to this priest and reported him to the proper authorities as I did in the first case.
In addition, my own ex-spouse is someone that I believe to be a malignant narcissist. Upon exiting our relationship after an 11 year marriage in which he never attended church he suddenly became reborn.

He was immediately promoted to 'deacon' of this church and began to date a woman who was love bombed and gaslighted into thinking he was her 'savior'.

He forced my children to give lectures, sermons, and stand in the presence of 'his Lord'.

My kids despised these actions and when my oldest son reached 18 and was no longer forced to see his father with emancipation from child support he ended the relationship with his dad.

It's ironic that this same man caused his family to be homeless, refused child support to the tune of 15k in arrears, had a warrant issued for failure to pay and appear for court, was arrested for violation of a protection from abuse order with a history of abuse/failed past relationships and somehow was deserving of this new found status while his family was left bankrupt and in extreme poverty.

Our poverty continues to this day yet, this same 'holy man' never assisted in any fashion but did show up for graduation only.

I'll note that these toxic individuals are quite believable and appear credible. They are often found in positions of authority because they need constant attention, adulation, and praise.
They rarely get caught, they aren't remorseful, they never receive punishment.

At best they may resign if caught without penalty to their careers.

On the other hand I gave up my career to be a homemaker. I'm unable to reenter the workforce. I'll more than likely be in extreme poverty the rest of my life. I'm currently on a ten year job search with no such luck to climb out of this nightmare.

I pray that nobody experiences abuse of this magnitude as religious abuse is just one small part of the iceberg. Abuse takes on many forms including: sexual, physical, psychological, financial, emotional, and verbal to name just a few.

God bless anyone who has to endure the same.