{"id":4560,"date":"2006-02-15T16:53:38","date_gmt":"2006-02-15T16:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html"},"modified":"2006-02-15T16:53:38","modified_gmt":"2006-02-15T16:53:38","slug":"confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a story you must read. This link is to the first post <\/a>of this good woman and excellent writer’s journey back to the Catholic faith:<\/p>\n

Actually, you might want to start here, read from the bottom up<\/a> and then go here and again, read from the bottom up.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

When I was visiting Westfield Monastery, I told Sister that prostitution is a lot like an addiction. And like many addictions, the struggle to not slide back into that addiction when things in life get rough is an on-going battle. Even now it is something I struggle with as the days pass and I\u2019m still not working, and the University folk can\u2019t get their act together and get things up and running for this degree I was supposed to start working on this week. I could log onto Craig\u2019s List this minute and be turning tricks in an hour if I slipped and \u201ctook that first drink\u201d as the metaphor goes. <\/p>\n

The only thing that keeps me on the straight and narrow is going to Confession and confessing the temptation. But there is a certain grace here as well, because it is in these moments of weakness that I am reminded once again that God uses his servants to give me strength. Each time I face a priest in the confessional and bring up the topic of prostitution, I brace myself for the condemnation. I\u2019m still waiting though. The only thing I\u2019ve received is love, empathy and compassion, things I find I\u2019m completely unable to brace myself for and so they end up breaking me apart in ways that I cannot predict. But through God\u2019s grace and mercy, I am reknit and each time the sutures that hold me together feel stronger and more secure.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a story you must read. This link is to the first post of this good woman and excellent writer’s journey back to the Catholic faith: Actually, you might want to start here, read from the bottom up and then go here and again, read from the bottom up. When I was visiting Westfield…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nConfessions of a Wayward Catholic - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is a story you must read. This link is to the first post of this good woman and excellent writer’s journey back to the Catholic faith: Actually, you might want to start here, read from the bottom up and then go here and again, read from the bottom up. When I was visiting Westfield…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-02-15T16:53:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic - Via Media","og_description":"This is a story you must read. This link is to the first post of this good woman and excellent writer’s journey back to the Catholic faith: Actually, you might want to start here, read from the bottom up and then go here and again, read from the bottom up. When I was visiting Westfield…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-02-15T16:53:38+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html","name":"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-02-15T16:53:38+00:00","dateModified":"2006-02-15T16:53:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/confessions-of-a-wayward-catholic.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Confessions of a Wayward Catholic"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}