New Books in Catholic Studies Colleen Dulle, "Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter" (Image, 2025)
Oct 6, 2025
Colleen Dulle, a Vatican correspondent for America magazine and author of Struck Down, Not Destroyed, shares her raw insights from reporting on Church scandals. She discusses how revelations of abuse shattered her faith but ultimately strengthened her connection to God. Colleen reflects on her spiritual journey, exploring themes of personal grief and the importance of community. She also addresses the barriers to women’s roles in the Church and the bureaucratic challenges in the sainthood process, all while fostering a more honest reckoning within the Vatican.
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Wrestling Through The 2018 Scandal Summer
- Colleen Dulle describes a 2018 stretch: a silent retreat, then the Vatican summit on abuse, then a Holy Land pilgrimage that tested her faith.
- She recounts yelling at God and learning to wrestle with anger rather than abandon belief.
Name And Sit With Your Anger
- Set aside time to sit with God in anger and wrestle through doubts instead of suppressing them.
- Use that wrestling as a process that can reveal meaning and help you move forward.
Grief Led To Withdrawal Then Return
- After her friend's suicide, Dulle experienced a crisis of community and feared judgment at her Latin Mass parish.
- She withdrew, found other faith communities, then later learned to re-enter community and grieve with others.
