This seems like an overly ambitious subject to be tackling on only the second post of my blogging rebirth, but I got some pretty good sleep last night and it’s a sunny Saturday with nothing pressing on my agenda, so fuck it, I’m feeling overly ambitious.
I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating the nature of reality and existence. It’s a habit I acquired in childhood, when I used to talk to “God” or “Jesus” in my head on a regular basis, asking for support and guidance in difficult or anxious situations. Not in a David Koresh/Jim Jones kind of way. More like a Catholic CCD/Baptist Sunday school/I have a born again Christian neighbor who influences me kind of way. My parents were not religious people, but I was raised Catholic, and they made sure that I checked all of those sacrament boxes: baptism, First Communion, First Confession. I attended CCD through high school. My mother even taught it one year, and I got to experience a girl I had a crush on make fun of her Italian accent behind her back. Good times.
Since I never do anything half-assed, when someone tells you that this omniscient entity created Everything That Is, and your sinful ass got saved by this white hippy in a cool hipster beard, a dude who performed miracles on the regular, told deep, meaningful parables that were more cryptic than a fortune cookie prediction, let himself be nailed to a cross (Ouchie!) even though he could have eye-lasered all of those Roman fuckers at will, and then, and THEN! the white hippy got raised from the f’ng DEAD after three days and appeared to his clueless, moronic apostles afterwards with more metaphysical clarity than Patrick Swayze in “Ghost,” well…. you listen, right? You don’t question what your elders are telling you.
So let’s just say that Jesus was just alright with me for a very long time. We talked. More accurately, I talked, and my mental creation of this hipster cool white hippy dude with kind blue eyes listened to everything I had to say with a kind and empathetic ear. (Sidenote: they really nailed the casting in the 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar. Ted Neeley will forever be the image I have of Jesus Christ in my head. Perfect. Casting.)
At some point things changed. I got older. Went to college. Did some reading. Crossed paths with a few more born again Christians who bore the glassy-eyed visage of true believing, Kool-Aid drinking cultists. David Koresh happened. Heaven’s Gate and purple Nikes happened. Al Qaeda happened. 9/11 happened. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated. News broke about decades-old pedophilia, the horrible abuse of young boys and nuns by Catholic priests, and even worse, efforts by the highest members of the church to HIDE this abuse and RELOCATE abusive priests to other parishes where they could revisit their sickness and crimes upon other children.
Personal Sidenote: If I have a personal code, a credo, a mantra, it’s anti-hypocrisy. When I encounter hypocrisy — political hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, friendship hypocrisy, marital hypocrisy — my critical thinking cells power up like Pac-Man eating one of those four pills that turn the scary ghosts blue and let him eat them in one bite. (Alternative metaphor: Neo swallowing the red pill in the Matrix). I kick into another existential gear. It’s usually a good thing. I’d like to think I’m saving a few reincarnations this way.
In my late 20s, early 30s, I got triggered by the hypocrisy. I started asking questions about my true spiritual beliefs and more specifically, my Catholic affiliation. Why was I Catholic? What did it mean to be Catholic? What do Catholics believe — what are the tenets of Catholicism? Do I personally hold those beliefs? If not, do I hold enough of them to remain a Cafeteria Catholic, like so many of my brethren who believe in holding on to that thread and “changing the church from within”? What about my buddy Jesus? What does this mean for him? Should it be “Him”? Should he/He still be capitalized? What is life about? Do I need religion to explore this? Is religion more about control than spiritual evolution? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?
That’s a lot of questions. Bottom-lining this, I ultimately decided that Catholicism was no longer for me because I’m a purist who believes that if you’re going to be a member of a club, you need to stick to the club’s rules and believe what the club believes. So for Catholics that means:
- Women can’t be priests and are generally subservient to men in the power hierarchy of the church.
- Priests can’t marry.
- Nuns can’t marry.
- Life is a “seamless garment.” You must be against BOTH abortion AND the death penalty.
- You don’t believe in reincarnation.
- You believe homosexuality is sinful and contrary to God.
- You believe the Pope — always a MAN, and so far, always a WHITE MAN — elected by an elite, elevated class of supposedly spiritually advanced cardinals who somehow couldn’t (or didn’t want to) spot and report pedophiles for half a century, is the infallible leader of the church.
- You believe it’s okay for said Pope to reside in the gaudiest, gold-plated, most ginormous house on the planet, a baroque palazzo that is its own city, a tribute to ego that Donald Trump would envy.
Fuck that shit. It wasn’t a hard call for me at all. I believe in reincarnation. I think women should be priests. I believe priests should marry. I don’t believe homosexuality is a sin or contrary to God. (Logically, if you believe God MADE Everything That Is, then God made homosexuals and bisexuals — indeed, they are present in the animal kingdom as well — how the hell can you believe that homosexuality is a sin?) I am pro-choice, within reason. I am anti-death penalty for the most part, but there are extremely rare situations where I can live with it. (See what I did there?) Ted Bundy being one example, since I just watched that documentary, though he hated incarceration so much (he successfully escaped imprisonment twice), I sometimes wonder if it would have been a greater punishment for him to keep him caged like the animal he was. I don’t believe priests or any pastor or religious person holds any special status in this world. They are human beings just like everyone else. I have visited the Vatican 3 or 4 times in my life. The first time was special, a wonder. I was 11. Each subsequent visit and contemplation of the disparity between the gold-plated opulence inside and the enormous poverty that exists in the world pissed me off more and more.
So I declared myself Out. Not Catholic anymore. Not to the rafter, just to myself and anyone who asked. If anything, I was surprised by how long I had remained Catholic since in my core self, I didn’t believe any of the above. Which just tells you how powerful social pressure, parental example, and general inertia can be. So I left Catholicism. I mean, REALLY left it. Left it in my head and my heart. Most Catholics have already left the “going to church on Sundays” and “sticking with the program” parts. But they still call themselves Catholic because it’s just easier and more comfortable. It allows them to think they’re still somewhat spiritual and close to God. Might be fine for them, but it’s not fine for me. These eternal questions are important to me. What I call myself, and what I believe matters. I’m not half-assing my spirituality by remaining a member of a club whose beliefs I don’t share, and whose members, like so many “religious” people of every stripe, are colossal hypocrites.
Now this doesn’t mean that I believe all Catholics or Christians are bad. That would be stupid. Archbishop Oscar Romero is a personal hero of mine. So is Mother Theresa. I actually like the new Pope better than any Pope in my lifetime. He seems to recognize the absurdity of papal perks, and he seems to be trying to lead by a better example than his predecessors. I still admire the Jesuits, and the example of the six Jesuit priests who were murdered in El Salvador in 1989. I admire the Catholic nuns who were murdered in El Salvador in 1980. There are diamonds in every rough. But you don’t need to be Catholic to be a diamond. And you can be a diamond and still be Catholic. The question for me always is, how are you living out your beliefs, what example are you setting, and who are you standing up for in life, the haves or the have nots?
It appears I have ventured far afield from my original subject. Looks like I went down a religious rabbit hole without realizing it. This is why I enjoy blogging. But I’m going to need to two or three part this.
