Jennifer Wortham has a favorite spot to pray at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. As she puts her hands together in prayer, she asks God to help her heal from the wounds that pushed her away from her faith.

“Christ forgave those who crucified him, so we do need to find it in our hearts to forgive,” Wortham said.

She grew up in a devoted Catholic household. She remembered how her family would take flowers to church and they would sew the priests garments. Priests would even come over for dinner to her house.

“The priest that molested my brother delivered communion with his same hands to my lips, so for a long time it was very difficult for me to accept that,” Wortham said.

It was in her 20’s when she found out that both of her brothers had been molested by a priest at their parish in Corona, California. Her brothers were only between 7 and 12 years old at the time.

“My family was very deeply betrayed,” Wortham said.

Wortham’s family trusted the priests of her parish blindly. She said the abuses happened multiple times in the span of two or three years.

“He used to take them overnight on fishing trips, one at a time, and that was his means of getting them alone,” she said.

The victims’ lives changed dramatically. Wortham recalled how one of her brothers was a straight A’s student and had the dream of becoming a doctor. Those dreams never came true.

“Both of my brothers have suffered kind of long term emotional and physical and spiritual disabilities, challenges with relationships,” Wortham said. “Both still carry a lot of shame, and they have anger.”

In order to cope with her pain, Wortham decided to give her faith a second chance. She found a safe space at Sacred Catholic Church.

One day she found two bird nests, an event she interprets as a sign from God.

“In a half dream, I saw myself giving it to the Pope,” she said.

Wortham wrote a letter to the Pope detailing her family’s experience and her personal journey towards forgiveness. A letter she describes as “divinely inspired.”

She sent that letter to Pope Francis, and the Vatican invited her to a papal audience. For the meeting, she took the bird nest as a gift, and Pope Francis blessed her grandmother’s rosary.

“In that letter I told him that I had forgiven the church for what happened to my family so many years ago,” Wortham recalled. “He was very moved, he had tears in his eyes.”

After that trip, she published a book called A letter to the Pope: My journey of forgiveness, faith and love. This whole experience has helped her become an advocate for victims and their families, but she thinks the church still has some work to do.

“The church has to be fully transparent on all the abuse cases, and the investigations they’ve done internally,” she said.

She also thinks the church should have priests volunteer to be prosecuted and that the statute of limitations for victims should be extended.

For now, she continues praying for her family and for all victims whose faith and trust has been tainted. She is advocating for an international day of healing for victims of abuse, neglect and violence.

Woman finds healing after writing a letter to the Pope