OK…So I was raised a catholic..yup….baptised, confirmed, went to CCD, church, sometimes 3 times a week. I still have memories of the smell of the strong incense the priest swayed back and forth during some of the special services. I especially liked midnight mass on Christmas eve..not because of the mass, for me it was all about getting to stay up late in hopes of seeing St. Nick (Santa). I remember any red light in the sky…my Mom or Grandma said “There is Rudolph”. Rudolph=Church?.
I thought it odd that some of the priests that I looked up to, on some occasions..like the church fair and several pot luck dinners..would get blitzed…drinking one to many beers and acted like fools. My Irish priests always had a way of drinking a little to much and saying things I questioned. I think it was around the time I was about 12 or 13 . Things began to change.
I was getting ready to go into the confessional on Sunday…(this would be the small, dark, scary room you go into to confess your sins with the priests (that you know) on the other side, there is a wall so you can’t see them, but there is also a little net when you kneel near your face..with a cut out and there is mesh or net over the cut out about a foot by 6 inches of opening) Most of the time…you say a few of your sins and he tells you to slam out a couple of “Hail Mary’s” or “Our Fathers” and all would be forgiven..the bigger the sin, the more prayers are piled on you. I can’t imagine what the wife beaters and murderers had to do to be forgiven or how many hundreds of prayers they had to say. Anyway back to my story.
As I am walking up to the confessional booth (the light above was off, so I could go in)..I got freaked out…no, i didn’t have some horrible scary sin to confess..I was just consumed by fear of going into that small booth and pretending God was on the other side. Why couldn’t I just speak to him in my pew or my bedroom or backyard or while driving in my Moms car. Why did I have to go into this scary, dark, small, cramped black pit and pretend he was on the other side listening to me. I Keep thinking of a drunk priest or hungover priest on the other side just waiting to get to lunch or go back to bed and sleep it off. So I didn’t go..that’s right..I gave it up..right then and there. No confession from me in that dark place anymore. I would talk to God directly, somewhere more peaceful and bright. I also noticed around this time, during the part of Mass where the priest can talk about anything…I would always come down to how much money our Church needed. Then they brought out the wooden bucket on a long pool and stuck it in front of every person in the row until they dumped money in it. Many times (growing up poor) I would put my hand in it pretending to put something in it. Today I make my donations to charities..Docs w/o Borders aka: Medecins sans frontieres.(is my Fav)
The reason I write this diary is yesterday I was getting my mail..and by mistake I recieved a paper sent out by the LA Catholic Church/Mission. The headlines on the front page made me gasp…
700,000 sig’s IN, 200,000 to GO..(Parent’s right to Know will be the first pro-life effort to reach the state ballot in CA history)
Soooooooooo Impressed! 6,000 pro-life marchers hit the streets in San Francisco “the walk was the best witness to the Gospel I’ve ever seen”
Are they Serious” Pro-life Democrats hopeful for change to party” w/ pix of Pelosi and kerry
Parents Right to know petitions-inside
Next pg-My phone company does what? Does your phone company support Abortion, pornography, or the GAY AGENDA?(Caps theirs not mine)If yes, Choose Sienna-A Catholic Phone Company. It is dedicated to promoting catholic culture and will contribute a percentage of your bill to the Catholic or Pro-Life charity. Get great phone service and help the unborn. Sienna (named after St. Catherine of Siena)
next pg- (A picture of a giant Cross) copy says” Carry this 1,500 miles all summer for no pay” Hurry! only 20 positions left. It’s an add looking for people to carry the giant cross from May-July across America to support Pro-Life and meet mothers that are just minutes away from killing their own babies.
And then I saw the ad in the back for “Living Air Purifiers” that also help clean your sins away” right next to “homemade bible dolls”-Adorable! Lovingly handmade-we have priests, sisters, Marys, angels, bishops, cardinals and …..coming soon…..THE SAINTS. Start your collection now!
How could I, at such a young age, have known that The Catholic Church was such a scary place. Back then I didn’t know squat about politics and what an important part the Church played in them. I still don’t understand why they chose a dark scary room to represent God, and make it the one and only place that you can get a direct line to him and be forgiven. Although for all I know…nowadays..maybe all they have to do is sign up for Sienna-A Catholic Phone Company and they can avoid the dark room and just dial him direct.
If I believe anything it is that “GOD LOVES EVERYONE”, and the Government and Church should always be seperate, and Women should make all decisions in regards to their Bodies.
I had to post a comment or my diary was fast becoming a classic Jules Pfeiffer comic. “You know the story about the guy who keep calling his answering service and he never had any messages…so he called and left messages by other people just so the operator wouldn’t think he was a pathetic, fucking loser.” at least now I will see 1 comment.
I wish this had more comments as I would think there are a lot of either catholics or ex-catholics out there..and one thing that was good about my catholic shcool years is that my basic education was far superior to public school. As I found out when I went to public school in 10th grade and was years ahead of everyone, and I was just an average student.
I went to public school and I barely get by with basics… I have two nephews who are in 9th/11th grade. They have gone to private, religious school their whole lives. Not for the religion part but for the best private schools in the area. They are both so smart and well educated it is crazy. One is off to look at East Coast Ivy Schools in 10 days with my sister..Has a 4.3 GPA…which includes extra work like working in homeless shelters and helping poor families on weekends in Mexico. It is so wild.
ok I’ll try this again. I kept hitting wrong deal and losing my posting. Maybe now that I’ve taken enough pain pills for the day I’ll get it right..
I too went to catholic schools, from kindergarten to 8th grade and one year of high school. We weren’t required to go to mass before each school day but if we didn’t we were certainly made to feel like we were lesser catholics.
Ah, yes the good old confessional box, a fucken scary deal to a little kid. And one which I’m happy to say I no longer have to torture myself with, being an ex-catholic. When I got a little older I figured out for myself that religion(any religion) was pretty much a scam-to my mind anyway. And have ended up an agnostic.
The confessional is really an odd construct when you think about it rationally away from the indoctrination you learned as a kid. Just what and how did that whole thing get started anyway-don’t remember that being in the bible. (although my knowledge of the bible is not that comprehensive) I think now it must have been set up as just another way to keep people under the churches thumb as kinda of scary deal as it was a mortal sin if you didn’t go to confession at least once or twice a year I think…either that or it was just a way for priests to get their perverted jollies.
As for what you got in the mail, I find it scarier every day how with bush in office the line is becoming so blurred to obliterated between church/state. Christian church that is cause thats what all these whackos are going for. Screw the constitution and all that. Do these people have no idea what Jefferson in particular had to say about churches/priests/religion?
Separation of church/state is vital to our democracies health and this continued encroachment going on in every state bill by bill just freaks me out. Thank god for Barry Lynn, a pastor who is adament about church/state separation, not that he gets much air time.
Religion and republicans seem to have an unhealthy fascination with peoples personal sex lives/procreation and try to gussie it up with their smary ‘pro-life’ crap. They are the farthest thing from pro-life I can think of.
Well kinda got away from catholic schools/confessional I guess. No kidding when I take extra pain pills I tend to get off on tangents or much more wordy.
I totally agree. It seems Religion, Repubs and Bush go hand in hand…It is all based on FEAR. FEAR & FREEDOM…That Booth gave me nightmares as a little kid. I do think it was a power trip on their part. The sounds were also scary. Hearing the slat open, when the priest shoved the wooden panel open, and then that low-god like voice made me almost crap my pants. Kinda like the voice of “The Haunted Mansion”. Hearing the muffled voice of him and the other sinner while waiting my turn to confess. The booths always had 2 people(sinners) in little booths on each side, while the priest was in the middle. I often just made up sins and went into the booth, just to look good in front of others. It’s like they all watched to see who the sinners were that week, and made sure the little ones were always pushed into the line. Whatever is wrong with you…I hope the pill helped. Is it chronic? I have also given up organized religion. I am very spiritual though.
Going to catholic school with the parish church right next to school meant during Easter especially they trooped classes over to the church to do their confessional duty…so we had to go. Your right it was pretty creepy and I absolutely hated having to go through that.
Chronic, have a hereditary neuro-muscular disease.
I think spiritual might mean different things to people also. I don’t know that I am but have a almost violent belief(meaning I’ve gotten called names, etc for stating those beliefs)in equality for everyone. That that should be a simple human right of everyone without having to even think about it. Yet people sure do fuck that up. Spiritual to me I guess means working for human rights or trying to live your live with that goal for everyone. Probably not everyones idea of spirituality but it’s mine.
That includes my belief that the word ‘tolerance’ is inherently wrong as that somehow means look at me aren’t I great, I’m ‘tolerating’ gays, blacks whatever. I’ve rather come to hate the word ‘tolerate’.
One thing I never could wrap my head around as a kid, even with all the indoctrination, was the idea of the priest on the other side of me being a real standin for god/jesus…I guess I just didn’t buy that somehow and knew that that was just wrong. Although I’m sure I must have considered it a sin to even think something like that.
just so you know, I see why you asked about editing the diary. We are working on that, and please let me know when you see that ‘Edit Story’ box at the bottom of your diary.
Secondly, I was raised Episcopalian, which is kind of like Catholic-lite. And technically we could take confession, but I don’t know anyone who ever did. And they didn’t use the booths.
But anyway, Pastor Dan will be here soon. And he is a wise counsel on issues like this. I mean, he’s a pastor, right?
Some of your issues might be specific to the Catholic Church and some might be to Christianity in general. But I’m not qualified to say.
thanks Boo..still not there. I am loving spell check. Wow..the idea of having my own pastor..My bro has a priest I have met at several parties..this priest is way cool..says Fuck and everything. Anyway..the diary was more about the scary publication I accidentally got in the mail..and how religion has no place in Politics and how the Catholic one really scares the shit out of young innocent kids. I will let you know when the edit button appears.
Yes, I don’t know how we got to the place where a persons religion when running for political office become some sort of litmus test-especially when the constitution rather expressely forbids it.
Also the whole saying ‘god bless america’ anymore kinda cringes me out..and I like Chris Rocks movie-Head of State- where he riffs on that pretty much adding I think ‘and everybody else’…which seems much more spiritual if you will.
Like I said if any of this gets to be rambling, I am kinda buzzing on the pain meds right now so hope I don’t embarrass myself.
the catholic church…
which translates into the following: for the first 23 years of my life on this planet, 20 of them were spent in catholic school. nuns older than most known relics from early civilizations, priests with sadistic tendencies bordering on psychopathic, lent, having to say the Hail Mary ever time an ambulance went by the school (and in covina california, that was plenty), lying in my first holy confession as i had nothing to confess (honestly), spending all of my 5th grade year in the library as the school hoped the rest of the class would catch up to me, and that my year not with my classmates would slow me down (in a library? i read every book in it that year), fish sandwiches on fridays in lent, stations of the cross, bad catholic songs, vatican 2, folk/guitar mass, touchy-feely priests after we were done with cleaning the alter after mass, old nuns who worshipped the ground “monseignor” walked on, not having a person of color in my grade until my junior year of high school, scapulars, beating my chest during “christ has died, christ has risen, christ will come again,” watching the diocese shun my mom when my father left us, listening to the parishoners talk about my dad’s suicide, the funeral director and his hallmark-esque platitudes and his bewilderment as to why we chose the ugliest cofin possible for my dad (“what do you mean a plastic bag is unacceptable” said my aunt), my mom sitting in church and walking out during a video-taped homily with the bishop urging the parishoners to vote down an anti-discrimination initiative on the ballot (said my mom “that was you they were talking about and they were wrong”), crying when oscar romero was murdered, being frozen when the three nuns and the one laywoman were murdered in el salvador, reading the “ratzinger halloween letter” where he states that i deserve to be beaten up when i seek out my civil rights as homosexuality is an abomination and an intrinsic moral evil, meeting other gay seminarians who were too afraid to come out and too closeted to offer any support when i did, getting HIV infected in the seminary, working in the sanctuary movement, lucinarium (the thursday evening dark chapel celebration with candles and a capella singing — truly exquisite), being yelled at by the swiss guard because i was supine on the floor of the sistine chapel marveling at the homoerotic and god-like work of michelanglo, nearly throwing up walking through the vatican seeing all the things they have stolen, reading how catholic higher-ups intentionally lie about data and refuse to allow healthhy sexuality education or condoms or anything remotely resembling tolerance about homosexuality, my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary at the same church they were married in as well as my parents and even my aunt and uncle, the smell of incense, delivering my first homily of sorts, having to take my middle name as my confirmation name because my mom was afraid i’d eventually reject the faith and this way every time i wrote my full name i would remember being confirmed, not joining Dignity, finally letting go of the church, realizing the imprint of being cathlic on me is indelible.
i hated those confessional booths. i always feared a kind of religious “wild wild west” thing would happen and i’d be jettisoned into some slave labor camp in some dusty tuscon-like or OK Corral-esque village making bullets for some deranged western outlaw type.
ok,i so as a child i had a very active magination…