Kneel beside me, child, and repeat the words. Don't ask why, just let them sink beneath your skin. Your grandfather spoke them, his father before— This is love. This is protection. This is how we keep you safe. The priest means well, even when his hands linger. The doctrine hurts now, but you'll understand when you're older. Questions are doubt, and doubt is the devil's gateway. Obedience is virtue. Silence is strength. They're teaching you to trade your voice for belonging, Your body for heaven's promise, Your mind for the comfort of knowing your place. And you'll call it love because we do. This is what they gave us— We pass it down. This is what they died for— We keep the chain. We know the stories, we've heard the whispers. We see the cracks in the cathedral walls. But to acknowledge it would mean we were fools— That we gave our children to wolves wearing robes. So we defend. We justify. We look away. "It's complicated." "You don't understand context." "Not ALL priests." "Our church is different." The armor we wear is made of denial. Forged from the unbearable weight of admitting We handed you to monsters while calling it devotion. Easier to believe the lie than face what we enabled— So we tighten your chains and call it tradition. The system didn't fail us—we failed you. But we'll die defending what destroyed us both, Because if this was wrong, then what was our suffering for? The sunk cost is too high. Keep the faith. Pass it down. This is what broke us— We pass it down. This is what scarred us— We keep the chain unbroken. And now you're grown, with children of your own. You remember the questions you asked, the doubts you buried. You see your child's eyes—the same confusion you felt— And you hear yourself speak your father's words: "Because we do. Because it's tradition. Because you'll understand." You've become the link you swore you'd break. The cycle continues, written in your DNA, Trauma dressed as heritage, abuse called honor. Your child asks why the priest wants them alone. And you pause—just for a moment—feeling the echo Of your own childhood fear, your own unanswered question. Then you say: "Respect your elders. Trust the church." You've inherited the complicity along with the faith. The faithful's children become the faithful who defend. Generation after generation, passing down Not love, but the inability to stop the machine. This is what they gave us—poison dressed as bread. We pass it down—because we can't admit we were fed poison too. This is what they died for—a lie too expensive to abandon. We keep the chain—because breaking it means we suffered for nothing. Inheritance isn't always treasure. Sometimes it's just trauma with a family name. But we polish the chains, call them heirlooms, And lock them around our children's throats— Whispering: "This is love. This kept me safe." Knowing neither was ever true.
