The Recovering Catholic

This volume brings together the poignant stories of over fifty women who left the Catholic Church to find more fulfilling ways of expressing their spirituality.
Author Joanne H. Meehl addresses a wide variety of topics including the reasons why women begin to question their faith, the heavy burden of religious guilt, the attitudes of the Catholic hierarchy toward women, and the escalating amount of sexual abuse cases involving priests. Meehl also discusses the Church's obsession with sex and the discrimination women feel because they are not included as full members of the faith. She includes some practical advice on breaking away from the Church including how to confront your family with the news that you are no longer a Catholic as well as information on choosing new spiritual outlets.
Unlike other books on the Catholic Church, The Recovering Catholic is the first to focus on the individual journeys of women, who faced not only what they thought to be discriminatory practices and oppressive dogma, but the ire of family and society in their search for a spiritual happy ending. The Recovering Catholic illustrates how these women successfully left the Church and found new avenues for their faith.