" The Catholic Church wasn't just a part of his parents' live, and his grandparents', it ruled their lives. The priests told them what to eat, what to do, who to vote for, what to think. What to believe.

Told them to have more and more babies. Kept them pregnant and poor and ignorant.

They'd been beaten in school, scolded in church, abused in the back rooms.

And when, after generations of this, they'd finally walked away, the Church had accused them of being unfaithful. And threatened them with eternal damnation. "

― Louise Penny , The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8)