I never had an issue with Catholicism. I went to church every Sunday as a child. I attended Sunday school, was in the youth group, taught vacation bible school. I went to CCD classes, received my first communion, then confirmation, then I became a little shit teenager and refused to participate after middle school.
I only had one issue up until I was ready to get married. To be confirmed, we had to go to confession. I personally am distrustful of priests (just google that mess....I'm not going there yet) and vehemently REFUSED to go to confession. My dirty deeds were between me and God and I didn't need some pervert priest wanking to my tales of debauchery. No Spank you very much. Somehow I was still able to receive confirmation and my first decision after being declared a catholic adult was to decide to skip the next Sunday....and almost every one for the next 7 years.
I went here and there. I always go at Christmas. We go on Mothers and Fathers day. Never consistently.
You know, I can't really say I learned much in my whole time in ccd? I learned how to hold my hands for communion. I learned the Nicene Creed (which those bitches changed for NO REASON). We learned the Hail Mary, Our Father, some hymns, basic stories of creation, crucifixion, Noah, 10 commandments, Jonah, Christ's birth. We were never really given the details of the ADULT beliefs of Catholicism. Basically I think its a ploy to converse only with other Catholics to ensure furthering the population.
Then it was time to get married. I picked me a good old Catholic boy. Neither of us had been married before or had children, so our process to be married in church was as easy as it gets with no annulments or conversions and such. We had to meet with the Deacon and get the spill on how we were living in sin. I pretty much by this point in life (I was 23? 24?) had decided that most churches beliefs were not for me. Had I married the first boy I fell in love with so we could live together and what not I'd probably be hanging out of some trailer in a tube top with 5 snot nosed barefoot white trash babies and 2 black eyes yelling for the law to 'lock his ass up' for the 3rd time this month. Thank GOD I lived with the moron first and was smart enough to end it when I did. I lived with my husband first and thankfully it was love filled and drama free so we knew it was meant to be and decided to make it official. ANYHOODLE I go on tangents sorry.....
So after the chit chat about how we would just lie and say we WERE NOT in fact cohabitating, we were given the list of things we had to do for the church to marry us. After having my Mommy write some checks, we were told we had to attend the "Catholic Engaged Encounter" at the Visitation Monastery. Oh God. This is where it starts.
We show up to this thing on a Friday night. I have NO idea what to expect. We sit in for an intro, are showed to our separate quarters (expected, but still annoying) and told to be ready at the ass crack of dawn for a full day of prayer and love and blah blah. Personally, had I ever been committed to a rehab, I can only assume it would be quite similar. I spent the whole time on the porch (which was on the 2nd or 3rd floor....I see what you did there nuns) chain smoking and trying to judge the extent of my injuries should I just jump off the fucking thing. Would I be able to make it to my car and escape? Or would I have to go to the hospital? Either option was better than the alternative. Which was staying and having them try to spoon feed me all THAT bullshit for 3 days. Yes Friday, ALL day Saturday, and MOST of Sunday. Going to Mass every day. Le sigh. It was hosted by 3 Catholic married couples. These uber Christians who were brainwashed into believing God was witnessing their marital relations and was right there with them and THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.
We each had a notebook. The entirety of Saturday was spent doing the following. We would have a topic. Sit in on a discussion (all couples) with the host couples, then retreat to our private quarters to answer a list of questions and write letters about said topic, then we were to meet each other in one of the private quarters and read each others answers and discuss. This happened 22 times in 2 days. TWENTY TWO TIMES. It was all about children, religion, marital conflicts, division of labor, roles, money....basically some shit you should've worked out a LONG time ago. We finally just gave up and started writing excessively profane and smart ass answers and then playing cards. It was awful.
Saturday night the dumb shits put out some boxes of Franzia (yea the boxed wine) and said we could each have ONE glass. Well then they left it unattended. So I drank 4. If I had KNOWN it would be so bad, I would've brought whiskey and sleeping pills. BUT NOBODY WARNED ME AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. ANYTANGENT AGAIN. I thought wine time was a sign it was almost over for the night. Nope. So after 4 glasses of wine they have a member of the host couples pray over each engaged couple and ask all these blessings from God. Then the priest shows up and introduces me to Natural Family Planning. Oh God. First of all, they believe marital relations is for procreation. Period. We have one job and that is to make more Catholics and lots of them. As someone who has been on some sort of birth control my WHOLE LIFE for female issues and who had within the last 6 month had surgery and suffered through a medically induced chemical menopause JUST to be able to HAVE babies.....I was a little annoyed at a MAN's stance on the subject. It was kind of a round table discussion. All these one glass of wine people politely inquiring as to the rules and consequences of said policy. I heard something about purgatory. Then the priest said we (the women) needed to chart our cycles, and to do the temperature thing and just abstain from relations on the days we felt we were ovulating. I stood my irritated drunk ass up and asked him how regular HIS periods were. Good husband yanked me down. Then I started muttering about just WHO IN THE FUCK was going to PAY for these 15 children we were going to end up with should we abstain from birth control for the next 20 or so years???? Good husband sweetly told me to please shut the fuck up before we get kicked out, so I did. That was where it broke me. These assholes staking claim on my body, my uterus, my very violent and life altering period. I washed my hands of it that night. We made it through the next day. Were married a few weeks later. I considered finding another church but that Catholic guilt is just imbedded SO deep I'd feel like I was cheating. Its an abusive relationship....pretty much. "But I love him and I've been with him so long! If I leave....oh God he will find me! Or I'll go to hell for getting a divorce!" HEAVY le sigh.
BUT, I wanted to afford my new baby the good childhood I had so I tried to just wipe the whole engaged encounter out of my mind and lie about my birth control and roll with the punches.....which kept coming.
I believe in a woman's right to choose. Period. I'm glad abortion is legal. I have not had one, hope I never have to, don't want one, don't think I even COULD if I was in the situation where one was possibly necessary......but I like that it exists just the same. One of the few times I graced the church with my presence in the last year, in the closing announcements at the end of mass, instead of "It's so and so's birthday!! claps So and so's anniversary!! claps" It was "Remember, this day, we will all be meeting to picket planned parenthood." The. Fuck. So the money I tithe is going to fund a protest where poor women faced with the unthinkable and most likely already guilt ridden, scared and sad, get to walk into a perfectly legal facility for a medical procedure and have people who claim to be Christians judging the fuck out of them and holding a modern Salem witch trial over some shit that is 1.) not their business and 2.) they didn't even pay to fund because churches don't fucking pay taxes. I can't with that. CAN. NOT. Its hypocrisy at it's finest. If you don't agree with somebody's life choices, please build a bridge and get the fuck over it. Don't you DARE point your judgy finger at their choices. How is the view from that high horse? Nice? Well I tell you what....its a long fucking fall from up there. How about you just smile at this other HUMAN BEING WITH FEELINGS and you go home, kneel at your bedside and you pray for God to wrap his arms around that woman?
And the GAYS. Don't get me started. Like that shit is a CHOICE. You love who you love. If you could choose, some of you wouldn't be in bed with cheating lying abusive criminals RIGHT THIS MINUTE. "It's a perversion" the church says. But what do they say about Priests fucking little boys??? NOTHING. They pay our tithed funds to sweep that shit under the rug. Do you realize there are SO MANY MOLESTING ASS PRIESTS that the Vatican at one point considered buying a FUCKING ISLAND to ship them to so they could spend their days in prayer reflection and repentance???? OH. MY. GOD. But the GAYS are the perverts. OK. Marriage is a CIVIL right granted by the government. The fucking church has NO SAY SO!! NONE! Gays aren't asking to get married in your stupid building! They are simply asking to be afforded what the straight folks get. The tax break, the ability to adopt and parent children, the ability to be recognized in society as a married committed couple. It is ASTONISHING to me! These 2 men, in their 70s, have been together almost FORTY YEARS (Ha. 5 straight marriages combined hardly last that long. And they pop out baby after baby, clog the court system with divorces and custody hearings, then one or both parents get on assistance because one person can't pay for babies alone) and when one partner dies, the home they share is awarded to the deceased man's brother who promptly removes the partner from the home and leaves an old man homeless. He has committed his LIFE to that man, to their home and all of it is taken away because his rights are not protected by the law. Tell me how that is right just or fair?? Tell me you are with your husband for 40 years when they slip into a coma. You believe there is hope, but his family with whom he has no relationship, have the final say so in the matter since your union is not recognized even though YOU have been the one paying his bills and wiping his butt for the last 5 months. They say "Well hell, pull the plug and legs collect the insurance." You are left with no spouse, no insurance, no say so in where he will be buried. Can you IMAGINE how HORRIBLE that must feel?? Its INSANE how this is even an issue!! And the church says "Well a marriage is to produce children, and they can't." Ok. So an infertile straight couple's marriage is invalid because they cannot produce children??? Riddle me that? The hypocrisy of it all. Its infuriating.
THESE are the confessions of the jaded Catholic. The corruption and the investigations and allegations of abuse are enough to send me packing. Add to that them being all up in my uterus and openly judging people for their lifestyles (which it PLAINLY says in the bible not to do).....I just really can't be on board with it anymore. I believe in Jesus and God. I am blessed. I have a wonderful relationship with and follow the teachings of Christ. I try to live a good life. I try to uphold morals and raise my children to respect life and each other, to do good for others, to just LIVE and LET LIVE. And I think that is what we should all do. People spend entirely too much time lighting fires in the name of God. God, in my humble opinion, is probably hanging his head in SHAME at the behavior of the people who claim to do things 'for Him'. I know I am.
