My grandfather was a staunch Catholic for his entire life. He also beat up my grandmother, and when she finally left him in 1955 and wound up a divorced single mother of five who only had a high school education and worked three jobs to survive, the Church ostracized her, not him https://twitter.com/MoiraDonegan/status/1309947126294642688

When he wanted to get remarried but still remain a Good Catholic, the Catholic Church annulled his marriage to my grandmother. Poof, she and five children no longer existed in the eyes of the church.

By the time I knew my grandpa, he was a kind, generous, and loving person who I adored. Life is complicated. I didn't know the whole (violent) story until I was older and he was dead. But I also saw how my grandmother suffered for her entire life. How she was never made whole.

Anyway, this isn't to say that Catholicism is any more good or bad than any other faith; like any other faith, it brings comfort and community and does some good. It is simply to say that the Catholic Church is a formal, enforced patriarchy and lots of women have borne the costs.