Last Sunday I went to Mass. So what, you might say, thousands of other Catholics did the same. But I am not like other Catholics - I am beyond redemption.

I am not a paedophile; I am not even a womanising priest. Those sins can be accepted as "one offs". You can go to Confession with them and, if you are truly sorry, receive Absolution. But there is no forgiveness for my sin.

I am a divorced Catholic or, as it is often described, "a designer Catholic" - a term which some people in my situation could find extremely offensive, considering all the soul-searching heartache and deep guilt which accompanies such a decision.

While I am allowed to go to Mass and sit with the other Catholics, I am barred from going with them to the altar to receive Communion. So there I sit for all to see, feeling bewildered and looking guilty, while the other Catholics file past.

I am aware of many people in my situation, with as many different views on the subject. Some feel that it's all irrelevant and, given the state of the Catholic Church, on its way out anyway. Some attend Mass and Communion as they always did and don't give it a second thought. Then there are others, like myself, who are appalled at the arrogance and hypocrisy of it all. We're weary of being told that we have turned our backs on the Church when the truth is the Church has turned its back on us. In my angry moments I have told myself "if I'm not good enough for them, then they're not good enough for me". In fact, the isolation I have experienced has led me closer to God in ways I had never found doing my duty as a so-called practising Catholic.

Then my dear mother died after a long illness and the heartache of it brought to the surface unresolved issues. I sat in the church at her funeral Mass and held my breath as my family prepared to go to the altar, and I remembered the many times she had said to me: "It is my dearest wish that all my children would receive Communion at my funeral", so, with my heart pounding so loudly it almost drowned the music, and my mother's words ringing in my ears, I joined them - half expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to sit back down. No one did, and I returned to my seat relieved and very happy that I had been able to carry out her wish, but knowing in my heart it would be the last time.

I had gone against The Rules. It is as simple as that. That is both the strength and the weakness of the Catholic Church. It is the reason it doesn't leave us when we leave it. It's the bits we can't help admiring versus the bits we despise. Nevertheless, its people are only human and it has to, one day, come round the other side and take a long hard look at itself. It can no longer afford to be so dogmatic. It is turning away good people with good hearts and good souls, whose only sin is to have chosen the wrong life partner and, unlike the thousands who continue to live in misery, have had the courage to try again: people who may not turn back when the Church realises it needs them, as it undoubtedly will.

And, as for me . . . well, after years of struggling with this, I am finally free. I was happy enough being one of the other Catholics and I sometimes miss the company, but I have had to find a different way.

I have had to learn to listen to my inner voice instead of to someone else telling me what to think, and that has brought new insights into myself and others that I never found going through the motions of a religion I never really understood. I have had to delve deep inside myself in the hope of replacing what I had lost. I found much, much more.

I found courage, compassion, love, trust and, above all, I found peace. The kind of peace that endures, the kind of peace that does not end - as it sadly does for some - after 30 minutes with the words, "the Mass is ended, go in peace". I have found a deep faith and it feels right.

Next Sunday morning you'll find me walking up Killiney Hill and down to the beach, happy in the knowledge that my God is with me and that my mother understands at last that I am not a lost soul but the very opposite.