Being Catholic After Deconstruction (Part 2)

"Ann, if you go ahead and do this, you know that you will get pushback from the Church right? Our diocese is not ready for this kind of thing."

The year was 2020. I had just shared with a priest I knew that I had felt called to start a podcast about the interior integration healing journey. He was a friend, and someone who had also become a journey companion of mine. He wanted me to know that I would face resistance in our archdiocese. I looked him straight in the eyes and replied with a sigh, "I know." 

But what was so controversial about what I was going to do? What was it that my priest-friend thought would make me face opposition from (some) Catholics?

I was going to share about how I had learned that holistic healing of personhood required more than Catholic religious and spiritual resources. I was going to share how what I had learned from therapy equipped me in ways that my spiritual and religious journey had not. I was going to share on my podcast that as God healed me emotionally, he had shaken loose some of the old ways I had held fast about being Catholic. All of this was apparently going to seem dangerous or at least disturbing to the general "Catholic sensibility" where I lived. I think that says quite a lot about the "container of Roman Catholicism" that I grew up in.

Back then in 2020, I had not yet entered what I would fully identify as 'deconstruction'. Looking back, the years 2015-2019 were when God started tilling the soil of my heart and stirring unrest in my contentment and complacency about being Catholic. I have never been complacent about my interior journey. I have always been deeply aware of how far I fell short of holiness and of how much I still needed to grow and be healed. But I was complacent about what it meant to be Catholic.

I never questioned it. I thought I was well-informed and well-formed in my faith. I was so committed that I had even served for five and a half years (2009-2014) in full-time ministry in a parish instead of completing my PhD and getting a job in academia because I followed Christ's call, much to the initial frustration of my parents and bewilderment of non-Catholic friends.

In the parish I worked in as well as in the local Catholic community in Singapore, I became known as a passionate Catholic "new-evangelist" with a zeal for making disciples and bringing lukewarm Catholics into a more intimate relationship with Christ. I was, perhaps, known for being rather uncompromising in my zeal for what it meant to be a "committed disciple of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church". 

I was a strict gate-keeper of Catholic orthodoxy. I have raised alarms before on speakers who had been invited to our parish whom I had felt were teaching things that were misleading and less than orthodox. I used to be the one who flagged "dangerous influences to the Catholic faith" and my loyalty to the institutional church  was quite absolute. In fact, that was how I had learned to earn security in the Catholic world - by proving my loyalty and my capability as a Catholic who knew "what the Church teaches" and who would enforce it as an important part of discipleship. 

So when my priest-friend reminded me that I would face resistance from the Church for what I was about to do, the irony did not escape me. I was on my way to becoming someone that my younger self would have flagged as untrustworthy. As someone who had left my prior professional path as an academic to go into the world of ecclesial ministry and speaking, what I was about to do may well put me on some "blacklists" and close doors to me and I was mentally prepared for that. But what I could not have anticipated was the most painful interior unraveling I had ever experienced.

When I first started the Becoming Me podcast in September 2020, I did not know that I would enter severe existential spiritual crisis. I did not know that I would be healing from complex trauma and that it would transform my relationship with God into one where I finally felt secure with him. I did not know that God was going to reveal and bring to light religious trauma and spiritual abuse in my life and help me recognise how these have shaped my relationship with him and the Catholic Church. 

I also did not know back in 2020 that I would be having my eyes and heart more fully opened to the grave injustices and abuses that have happened throughout Catholic Church history and which continues today both around the world and in my own backyard. I did not know that the cumulative effect of all these different realisations would rend my heart and soul so much that I would tell God, "Unless you show me a way I have not yet found, I cannot see how I can keep my integrity, be faithful to how you have revealed yourself to me, and still be Catholic."

Yet here I am now in 2026, sharing about my deconstruction publicly when I know that I will be regarded with suspicion for doing so. Why do I do it? The deepest reason is because this is where Christ has led me, and where I have come willingly to witness to God's love for all who are struggling with their faith. I am also doing this because it is the natural next step in my interior journey and personal vocation.

And I know I am ready now because I can do it with a spirit of charity even towards those who cannot accept my witness and believe I am leading people astray. I believe this is because I have come to honour all the stages of growth I have gone through and I can accept that younger version of myself who would have viewed my present self with suspicion for being "too free".

Because I have gone through this journey, I know first hand how terrifying and alienating it is to ask honest, authentic questions that our conscience demands but which "the Catholic Church" - however we experience it in our lives - cannot seem to abide. I can also remember how disturbing and dangerous it felt as a younger Catholic who needed absolute clarity and certainty when I encountered Catholics who did not fit into the familiar "container or Roman Catholicism" where things were in black and white and unchanging.

In the container of Roman Catholicism I knew, there are strict lines to stay inside if you are to be considered a good Catholic. There are clear yet unspoken expectations of behaviour and speech to follow if you wanted to fit into the Catholic tribe. Those who did not fit into the dominant paradigm of accepted Catholic behaviour were often seen as ungrateful, disloyal or as "confusing other Catholics". And for most of my life until my late-thirties, I had kept well within those prescribed lines and never dreamt of doing differently.

And yet, even when I was perceived to be at my most loyal to the institutional Church, my heart and conscience had always belonged first to Christ. I just never realised it until I reached a point in my walk with Christ where I would need to dismantle my old distorted images of God as well as my never-before questioned understanding of the Church or what it means to be Catholic. 

Having made this journey thus far, I now have so much empathy and compassion for those who have doubts, questions and disagreements with the Church because they are sincerely desiring Truth that is more than propositional truth and faith that is more than belonging to a Catholic tribe. There is real risk in being honest and open about one's interior journey if one steps outside the prescribed lines. There is wisdom in keeping our questions private because our bodies know that the faith spaces we inhabit cannot hold us and our questions with hospitality and compassion.

Having said that, I have also discovered that when we honour the pace of our healing and our need for integrity even when it means journeying in isolation, it is also possible to develop a solid enough sense of self to become more open about our struggles and accept the opposition and discomfort it brings to others.

Had there not been other Catholics and Christians (Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin SJ, Richard Rohr OFM, Msgr. Tomáš Halík, James Finley, K.J. Ramsey, Brian McLaren and Pete Enns to name a few) who have been open about their struggles and who dared to witness their journeys of faith and be called heterodox, heretical, or "wolves in sheep's clothing" for doing so, I would have had less reason to hope at the darkest point of my deconstruction that there might be a way to keep my integrity AND still belong to the Catholic Church. 

This is also one of the reasons why I share about my interior journey.  So many people all over the world have responded to my content in comments, reviews and private messages to tell me that by hearing or reading about my journey, they have found the words to name their own experiences. All of these people who have connected with me thought they were alone in their journey until they came across mine.

Many of those who follow my work are deconstructing, on the brink of leaving or have left the Catholic / Christian faith but are still hoping that there might be a way to stay connected to God in their healing journeys. Somehow, in a way that mystifies and awes me, my work has been that bridge for them. There is spiritual fruit beyond my efforts here. I will gladly bear pushback just to be able to help those who find themselves at the margins of the Church recognise that God is unfazed and even glad that they are wrestling with their faith.

So if you're following this series because you are also struggling with your faith, I want you to know that you are not alone. I hope that what I will continue to share in this series will enable you to understand your own experience better and help you to face your doubts and questions with more assurance.

If you're following this series because you are curious about the experiences of someone who has deconstructed but has decided to still remain Catholic, I thank you for your curiousity. Please know that no amount of eloquence can adequately explain this experience to someone who has not undergone it. I hope that you will be slow to judgment and generous in offering the benefit of doubt when you do not understand.

And if by chance you're reading this series in order to find fault with me or to "report" me for being a bad influence on Catholics, I want you to know that I have been where you are too. I understand your zeal and sincerity perhaps more than you know, and I do not hold any grudge against you for it. But I also wish to gently remind you that the path of deepening faith holds many unexpected surprises, and you never know where the Lord might lead you on your way to union with him.

Journeying with you,

Read Part 1 of this series here.