Balance

As a young child, the church felt like home to me. My grandparents were very religious and had pictures of La Virgen y Jesús in their bedroom. Once, my grandfather gave me a Sacred Heart of Jesus as a gift to hang up on my wall. I learned the Sign of the Cross in Spanish and English. I associated the church with the large outdoor parties it hosted; men grilling arrachera, grandmothers handing out tamales, little kids dashing with painted faces to play basketball next to the bouncy house someone rented.

I went to a Catholic school near my childhood home, just north of Logan Square. It was a small elementary school made up mostly of Latino kids from the neighborhood, and massively underfunded. I was in the first grade when the school shut down, and my parents transferred me to an Irish Catholic school in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.

My mother is Irish Catholic, and her faith had never conflicted with my father’s, so I figured that this new school wouldn’t be too different. I was very wrong. The school was mostly white. There were no Spanish masses and the church was painted in ugly shades of beige. The students were also upper middle class, which made my family’s relative struggle to pay the high tuition stand out even more.

It was at this school I started learning some of the more restrictive aspects of Catholicism. Any informational discussion of sexuality was seen as inappropriate, which only lead to an environment of young teenagers who did not know how to talk about sex in a healthy way. Girls were bullied when their bodies developed too early or too late, and at thirteen years old, they were labeled as either a “slut” or “prude.” It was assumed everyone was straight and cis, unless you were using the labels gay and lesbian to bully others. Although I had many encouraging female teachers, the church itself still reinforced traditional gender roles, fostering toxic masculinity through aggression and emotional unavailability.

When I tried to turn back to the church that I grew up in, I realized that the same problems with gender and sexuality were pervasive there as well. I started going to church less and less; when I did go, I could barely sit through sermons from the hypocritical priest, who preached acceptance then spent his days off yelling at women at Planned Parenthood. Eventually I stopped going altogether. I felt like all of the joyful memories of my childhood had been devalued, and I didn’t know what to do.

Religion is tied so closely with my culture, it is impossible to ignore, no matter what I believe in. I grew up with prayer candles and rosaries around the house, saint statues in my backyard. Easter and Christmas, while very religious, were also some of the biggest family gatherings all year. I wasn’t sure how to hold onto my culture without also being religious.

Eventually, I started to reconnect with some of the aspects of spirituality I found comfort in. I don’t go to church anymore, but I still keep a candle of La Virgen in my room. I’ve also invested more in connecting with parts of my culture that aren’t expressly religious: the language, the music, the food. Even though I am not a practicing Catholic myself, I can still respect the comfort and joy it brings to so many of my family members, and I understand why it’s become so ingrained in their identity. I don’t miss being part of the church as a kid because the same values are still strong in my life: happiness, family, and love.

By Caroline Rodriguez