Every single one of us knows what it is like to be “in Exile”: from our families, from society, from our own souls. This is the first reason why the name “Catholic Church in Exile” was so important to us: it speaks to the isolation of the human heart, but also to our deep desire for acceptance without expectation or restriction.
There is an additional theological underpinning to our name that is equally important and related to our inherent human identity and need for nonjudgmental acceptance.
The Jewish Kingdoms of Judah and Israel were taken prisoner by two greater empires: Babylon and Assyria. To destabilize the population and prevent rebellion, all Jewish officials, citizens, royalty, and families of large size were forced to leave Judah and Israel. They left behind their possessions, kinsfolk, land, and religion and were brought as captives to a land they did not know. These Jewish exiles had to learn a new language, find new occupations, and were not allowed to return to the Temple for worship. They were forbidden from practicing their religion in its fullness. The simple act of survival now occupied their every waking moment, preventing them from rebelling. Only a small remnant was left behind in Judah and Israel to farm the land and pay taxes and homage to the occupying force.
What the Exile WAS is negative. What it GAVE the world is extraordinary: a deeper, richer, and more expansive view of God and God’s relationship with creation.
The people, removed from their house of worship, began to view God as more than a national, ethnic, or geographic deity. God became a creator, a mystical spouse, a spiritual lover of all humankind who had given a special gift of the Law to the Jewish people. Only an exile, a wanderer, can truly appreciate that God is not “housed” in any specific place or belief system. Rather, God is as within as God is outside; as imminent as eminent; and as inexpressible & irresistible as God is undeniable.
Jewish theology plumbed the depths of suffering and found there both an uncompromising sense of ethical & compassionate responsibility and a profound mystical wisdom. Theology expanded to include deeper understandings of the soul and the afterlife. At the same time, a righteous anger at oppression led to the rise of apocalypticism: the symbolic expression of hope for the end of all oppression, when God will turn human systems of power and powerlessness on their head and right all human wrongs.
Christianity was its most powerfully compelling when it was powerless. When Christianity gained power, it grew into its own oppressor. Once the Emperor Constantine legitimatized and funding Christianity in 315AD, the Catholic Church naturally began to codify its beliefs into laws that wandered from the original intent of scripture, and eventually—as humans will do—it became an oppressor of all who questioned its laws. The first rule of all human institutions, be they the family or the national government or the church, is their own survival. If they are unwilling to change, they must suppress dissension to survive until they become oppressive and devoid of spiritual dynamism.
We therefore hold that a faith that lives outside the comfort of power—as did the faith of Jesus, the Apostles, and the ancient Christian Martyrs—develops a compassion and mercy for others that refuses to protect God from God’s people. An exiled religion cannot build barriers, gates, and moats around itself. It cannot build monuments to its past that become ossified into uncompromising laws that harm rather than heal. An exiled faith is forced to identify with the aggrieved, the traumatized, the helpless.
We do not wish to change the theology of our Western Catholic Tradition, but to reinterpret it within the context of the compassion and mercy toward the woundedness of people that Jesus preached. Yet theology is only reinterpreted when it is no longer “safe” in its self-constructed ideological prison. When we encounter the reality that we are all, in fact, exiles—outsiders—from God, we experience a rebirth that is only possible outside of and at odds with institutional power.
It is a human reality deeply encoded in our brains that we must protect our “groups”, including those which form around religious beliefs. In evolutionary terms, it is important for a child to learn whom to trust as they grow. First it’s mom, then the nuclear family, the extended family, educational adults, civil servants, etc. However, this natural psychological process harms us as we grow into adulthood and continue to rigidly build walls around the various little societies we ascribe to. We do this to our ideologies not to protect the Truth itself, but to protect the truth from those who question our insular interpretations of that Truth.
Human beings are tribal: they always want to define who is in and who is out. When you are in exile, everyone is in because everyone is out.
Theologically, institutionally, socially, jurisdictionally, the Catholic Church in Exile is trying to spur a rebirth of Catholicism. Too many want to reform the Roman church by mimicking it. We want to reclaim, not the institution of Roman Catholicism, but the religious identity called "Catholicism."
The need for a church-in-exile will never not be necessary: power must always be confronted by those outside so that it does not become corrupted, ossified, and oppressive. Jesus Christ Himself lived this example as one rejected by both religious and secular power. He accepted the fate of one exiled from one’s people, culture, religion, and society. On the cross, Jesus’ human nature was exiled from his divine nature as he cried out to his God from the exile of his physical and spiritual suffering, “Why have you forsaken me?” We now understand that Jesus’ sense of exile on the cross reunited a weary world with its loving Creator.
On the Cross, the true power of Exile is on display. We live this out in our daily lives, calling to other Exiles, “All are Welcome! It is the Lord who welcomes you!”
Together, we exiles journey to a home we cannot see or understand, describe or copy. We simply see the road and walk together as a chosen family, a royal wandering priesthood.
Who We Are
We are the church that says, “Yes.” Yes to those excluded from the sacraments by the historic western catholic tradition. Yes to an open communion table unfettered by gatekeeping dogmas. Yes to a female and married priesthood. Yes to the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ persons to all seven Sacraments, including marriage and ordination. Yes to those who feel called to historic liturgical worship but are still uncertain of their beliefs or ideas about God.
And we are the church that says, “No.” No to spiritual abuse caused by authoritarian doctrines. No to the exclusion and oppression of persons who do not speak like, look like, live like, or behave like us. No to medievalist dogmas that do not address the true experience of modern people who are wounded by trauma, suffering, and disconnection with family, self, and society. No to overt or covert systems of control, patriarchy, racism, classicism, ageism, or religious fundamentalism. No to ideologies that further wound and drive God’s people away from the healing message of Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church in Exile strives to live at the intersection of individual conscience, personal responsibility, and a Catholic Christian spirituality that is both relevant to modern concerns and authentically linked to historic belief and practice.
We are not an “anything goes” community, but rather an “anyone belongs” community.
If you have been exiled by other Christian Churches in the Western Catholic tradition, contact us to begin a conversation about whether you, too, are called to travel with us, a family of exiles at home in our homelessness.
Before a Lenten Prayer service at our chapel in St. Charles, IL
Some of the children at Heart for Orphans Orphanage in Kenya. We raise money for food and essentials for all 26 children.
One of the volunteers at our Young Mother’s job training program in Kenya. Here unwed mothers learn job skills so they can care for their children on their own.
We have groups to assist LGBTQ persons in Kenya who are being persecuted because of who they are. If you need assistance, send us a contact form.