Hurting in the Church. Fr. Thomas Berg

      Even if you don’t identify with the target audience I describe in the introduction, I hope that my book can still be worthwhile for you.

      You don’t have to be Catholic to benefit from this book. While I particularly have in mind the situation of baptized Catholics in the United States, I believe Catholics from around the globe as well as members of non-Catholic Christian denominations and faith communities will be able to benefit from the reflections and stories contained in the pages that follow.

      You don’t have to be a practicing Catholic to benefit from this book. In fact, I wrote much of it with the non-practicing Catholics in mind. So give it a shot: there’s nothing to lose.

      Or the hurts you are experiencing in life might not be faith-related at all. You might even be experiencing physical pain or long-term illness or emotional suffering that has another source. It’s enough that you are carrying around wounds to benefit from these pages, especially chapters 6 through 9 which deal with personal healing.

      But you don’t have to be hurting at all to benefit from this book. Perhaps you know someone who is hurting; this book might give you some better insight into that person’s situation and help you to love them better.

      And let me offer a few quick thoughts on how to read this book. Obviously there is a certain logic to the order of the chapters and the progression of the book, but you shouldn’t feel locked into reading the chapters in order. The chapters are generally independent of one another; so if a title or topic of a particular chapter grabs your attention, feel free to jump right in and read that chapter.

      In most of the chapters, you will come across endnote references. Don’t let them distract you. They just point to more information (found in the back of the book) that you can always return to and read later if you are interested. I’ve also included a list of some recommended reading that might afford you additional food for heart, mind, and soul.

      Whoever you are and whatever your situation in life, know that I am praying for you—and asking God to touch your heart and bring you his peace through these pages.

      Introduction

       A Church of the Hurting

      This book has a very particular, though not exclusive, audience. I am writing for Catholics who, somewhere along life’s journey, have had a painful experience in the Church.

      To suggest that a large segment of the Catholic population, including those who no longer practice, fits this description might seem an exaggeration to some. What I am proposing could appear downright suspect or at least foreign to the experience of many readers. I would wager, however, that for many other readers, this book will strike a profound, if unsettling, chord.

      The reality of the Catholic Church today in developed countries, and certainly in the United States, is that we are a church of the hurting. This book is for Catholics—far more than we would care to imagine—who have endured an experience of hurt in the Church. It is an exposé of our frequent failures as Catholics to live the life of genuine Christlike charity, the self-giving, passionate, interpersonal love and caring—agapē—experienced so intensely in the first Christian communities and envisioned by St. Paul in his first

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