Recovering Catholic

Recovering Catholic

I’ll admit it; I was baptized. I was dunked into a trough for strangers to see. If you’re not familiar with the process, think Edgar Allan Poe’s death by drunkenly drowning in a street puddle. I was intoxicated with this whole “newborn” thing, too dunked to walk, and had no idea what this priest guy was even saying, but I think he wanted to start a fight.

When sitting in Sunday School years before I should have my first communion, I was stricken sober with a revelation. It was after my Sunday School teacher— who, at the time, was only 13 years old (huh, some expert)— informed us that dogs do not go to heaven. I then realized that my complacent participation in this sick religion needed to be rationalized or denounced. It was all or nothing, baby.

Sure, being Catholic has its benefits; there were free donuts after service! However, they were wardened by the hellhound retiree community of the church. You could smell them a mile away from their old leather polish, neurotoxin-laden laundry detergent, and baby powder. Jebus crust, the donuts may not have even had powdered sugar; they could have been covered with the cryptkeepers' talcum powder corpse dust.

In the church, there was also the kind of pleasant atmosphere of strangers desperate to use Sunday service as an opportunity to turn around their sinful week by being extra-friendly. I can’t blame them; it’s easy to feel nervous sitting in a room full of 300 people affirmatively saying “Amen” after the priest has just explained how you will burn in hell. We’d arrive at a “say ‘Hi’ to a stranger” portion of service, in which the priest encourages listeners to “love thy neighbor” and talk to strangers in the church. Church-goers would break into a dead sprint down their pews to get their sinful hand sweat on anyone in a ten foot radius. The priest would shake so many nervous and friendly hands it’s my impression that holy water is really just guilty perspiration. Little did you know, priests actually wear oversized sleeves to hide sweat bands on their wrists— not just for collecting holy water brine but also for b-ball with the altar boys. 

Also, I went to a really, really White, upper-middle-class Catholic Church. There weren’t poor and rich standing side by side like in the priest’s analogies. There were no Israeli Jews in sandals, either! How could I be lead to believe anything the priest was telling me? The Sacramental bread and incense fumes dulled our minds into blind ease *shudder* woe as me.

If you’re into goth culture, Catholicism might be the church for you! Catholicism has naturally spooky ambiance with glooming organ songs, holy ghosts, stained glass martyrs, lurking old people, and sad altar boys. Catholics generally have nice church buildings, though. A result of the gaggle of aunts in an on-call help committee, our church cult den was constantly gussied-up. Fresh lilies, fragrant candles, and fine art highlighting gruesome death on a cross added to the atmosphere of holier-and-better-homes-and-gardens-than-thou.

Furthermore, there was an entertaining beauty pageant aesthetic to behold. Something of a hallway with the twins from The Shining, first communions were a celebration of virginal ten year olds in baby wedding gowns lined up to eat the flesh and blood of their savior. And critics dare to argue that the Catholic church disenfranchises women! How do you explain first communions praising young women performing their first cannibalism act by eating a man? Eating the Man! Take that, patriarchy!

In all seriousness, it was bizarre to listen to an old man in front of a large crowd read excerpts from the new testament saying that women are the originators of sin and implying that women ought to be restrained to prevent further sin. Raised in the twenty-first century, I got to first-hand witness a weekly witch hunt. I could be wrong about my interpretation of “witch hunt” though; it wasn’t nearly as bad as the way Donald Trump has been treated.

If an adult decided later in life to join the church, maybe with a zest for pitchforks and disliking women, they would be baptized in a pond behind the church. Some newly-baptized adults would come back with stories of small altar boy hands grabbing them from the bottom of the water. Oh wait, that was just a nightmare I have. But I’ve got to say, it was pretty fun watching a ornamentally-dressed priest basically lube wrestle an adult in grimy pond water while the audience praises it as a joyous and holy event.

I ended up leaving the Catholic church before my first communion. It was totally my choice. Even though consent doesn’t exist at that age, I was old enough to realize that Sunday morning cartoons were an irrefutable priority. Avoiding church was easier after my dad came out as an atheist to the Catholic family. On the search for different enlightenment, he could watch Cartoon Network with me.