Confessions of Contrition by sarahmdean

confessions of contrition

confessions of contrition a critical canonical look at the Catholic church

CONTENTS Old Testament Genesis Exodus Judges Proverbs Lamentations

New Testament GOSPEL of ANTHONY GOSPEL of ISABELLA GOSPEL of TINA EPISTLE to the CATHOLICS REVELATION

confessions of contrition

This is not a book bashing the Catholic Church. This is simply to bring awareness to the damaging effects that it can have on those who have been forced into the religion, and have never really identified with it. All in all, I don’t think the church is inherently bad— mostly the people who make it bad. Which can be said with anything, but, as a religion, I feel like the people who represent it should act according to what the religion teaches. Most of the time, they don’t. This is an anthology of interviews, testimonies, revelations, and confessions. I hope it can teach you something, give some sort of solace, bring new insights, and be a refreshing outlook.

This is not a book bashing the Catholic Church. This is simply to bring awareness to the damaging effects that it can have on those who have been forced into the religion, and have never really identified with it. All in all, I don’t think the church is inherently bad — mostly the people who make it bad. Which can be said with anything, but, as a religion, I feel like the people who represent it should act according to what the religion teaches. Most of the time, they don’t. This is an anthology of interviews, testimonies, revelations, and confessions. I hope it can teach you something, give some sort of solace, bring new insights, and be a refreshing outlook.

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confessions of contrition

GENESIS

confessions of contrition

“It’s a constant shame, a constant guilt trip. Oh, let’s point out another thing you’re doing wrong. When it comes to teaching a child, you should also put reinforcement on the things that they do right. You should do a lot more emphasis on that. Because that will reinforce good behavior.” Anthony Bennett

GENESIS

confessions of contrition

grew up Catholic, so guilt is in my DNA. That’s their system for forcing people to act righteously. I hated going to confession. I would be so scared that I’d shake. It really was never as bad as I thought it would be, but why did I have to go tell this person my sins? The priest was supposed to act as an intercessor to the Lord, but still, he was human. He had his own collection of sins. Why was he any more pious or qualified to talk to God than I? God was supposed to be able to talk to me at any time, so why couldn’t he tell me what I needed to do to appease him for sinning? I’d always be determined not to sin again, but, being human, I’d catch myself a week later doing something bad, and instantly hate myself for it. Also, how did God not sin by literally killing everyone and everything on the planet in the giant flood where only Noah survived? That’s always bothered me. How was (almost) sacrificing your own son in the name of God not fucking insane? Like, honestly, God seems really manipulative and abusive. The opposite of what he claims he is. Because of that, I don’t trust him. I never really liked going to mass. As a child, I would try to force myself to like church. I wanted to be able to relate to the content and I just couldn’t. At school we would have religion class and I was never fully invested. I knew some kids that really loved Jesus and felt like he

was talking to them—I couldn’t relate. I always questioned how they knew Jesus was talking to them. Like, did he appear? Did he have a certain voice? Am I doing something wrong? I really wanted to like Mass. I really wanted Jesus to be apart of my life. But I never fully believed in it, and I didn’t like how it made me feel. I always felt like I was being judged. I knew God would strike the gavel on me. If I thought or did certain things, I would immediately be afraid of consequences that I’d have to face. Would God still let me into heaven if I broke my Lenten promise? Would he still love me even though I was mad at my baby brother and wished I didn’t have one for a split second? Would he still accept me even though I told a lie? Can I still be called a Catholic even though I found the religion rather boring? I wasn’t sure. But I know that I was always, always paranoid. I think that’s where some of my anxiety stems from. I’m constantly anxious about things that I can’t put my finger on. Is it lingering Catholic guilt from my childhood? I actually overthink everything. I’m not even kidding, when someone uses a period while texting me, I feel like they are mad at me. I’ll replay conversations over and over and over and think about what I should’ve said instead of what I did say. If I slip up and show anger in public, then I will definitely feel remorse for the next 2 years. I feel like guilt is strung throughout my DNA.

GENESIS

confessions of contrition

nthony Bennett grew up in the deep south, constantly moving around— nineteen times to be exact. Ranging from Birmingham to Montgomery to Jackson, no place was more welcoming than the other. Identifying as gay and being the adopted black son of two white, conservative parents, Anthony felt a strain within the church from an early age. “Not only did I feel like the odd one out at church because of the color of my skin, but also at school… I got glances, and being a little kid, I didn’t realize it at the time, but in retrospect, I see it now. I wasn’t [necessarily] being ostracized by white people, but also people of my own color. Being asked what I was every day … because apparently that mattered to them. Sadly, in the black community, there has to be division still. Like light-skinned versus dark-skinned, yellow bone, red bone, all of this division, needs to be changed.” His schoolmates did not directly address him, but he could feel the tension. “They wouldn’t call me names, but they would intentionally move somewhere else when I came around. It seems odd that people who claim to love all of God’s children seem to treat people who aren’t white, straight, and cisgendered differently.”

Not only did he have issues with the congregation and his schoolmates, he felt that the religion itself promoted white-washing. “I would sit there and think about my social studies class, and how I knew that people from Israel would look more like me, in terms of skin color. Why would they need to make the Holy Family white? To make them more acceptable? That didn’t sit well with me.” He also felt like a lot of the details of the religion didn’t make sense. “I didn’t necessarily have a problem with the Ten Commandments as a basis of morality, but other things that you would hear and read in sermons, like not being able to eat shellfish or other certain meats? What’s up with that?” Catholics believe that the body and blood of Christ is in the Eucharist (the wafer you eat and wine you drink during Communion) and that was particularly weird, as a child, to be able to grasp. Does it promote cannibalism? “So we’re eating a person right now? … A person that’s not even alive anymore? … When does the supply end? How big is this dude’s body?” All in all, as a child, Anthony felt like the Church sent mixed messages, like “Be nice to everyone… except these people. You’re free with God, but you can’t have sex before you’re married…” and things like that. It seemed that the Church was very hypocritical and he could understand that from a young age and continued throughout his life.

GENESIS

rowing up in the heart of Johnson County—an affluent county located in northeast Kansas—Isabella (Izzy) Walters grew up with the Catholic faith as part of her identity. Going to Catholic school from preschool all the way through high school, she was well aware of the ins and outs of the religion. As a straight, white, cisgendered female, Izzy didn’t feel as if she was being ostracized by anyone in the church, but still deals with the anxiety residing from the constant guilt and shame that permeates the Catholic Church. Even though it was apart of who she was, she didn’t feel like it was necessarily her own faith. “I wore an ugly, green and red plaid skirt paired with a boring, plain red, white or blue polo shirt uniform. Every Sunday, my parents would drag me out of my bed to shower, get changed into dress clothes, and go to Church. I wasn’t a morning person and Church seemed to never end. I didn’t seem to have a voice when it came to practicing. I was in a solitary uniform, reciting dirt old passages and doing so because I was so sheltered in the faithand my home life that I thought it was just expected of me as a fifth grader.”

She didn’t hate the Church, per say, but their mannerisms would seep into her subconscious, making it hard for her to not feel guilty about anything she did wrong. “For the most part, I was proud of my faith, but because I found my own path in it. I felt, growing up in the faith, I was pressured to be ‘good’ and follow the church guidelines, so to speak. This caused me to be weighed down anytime I did something ‘wrong.’ I felt like there was an overwhelming guilt cloak draped over me and those issues tended to weigh on my heart. I knew Christ would forgive if I asked for it but, sometimes I didn’t agree and wasn’t sorry. That’s what made it even harder to bear.” To this day, even somewhat removed from the Church, Izzy still feels the repercussions of the guilt embedded into her DNA. “In my personal life, I still struggle with feeling guilty over small things. Not many people can understand the guilt I feel because, in my opinion, it was hardwired in me from the very beginning. It’s hard living with guilt and it gets in the way of being able to ‘live life to the fullest.’”

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GENESIS

confessions of contrition

y mother decided to send me to Catholic school because she thought the foundation of faith would help me live a fulfilling life. She loved the richness and tradition of the liturgy as opposed to the nondenominational Christian church she grew up with. She felt like it was the best and first version of the faith and something that couldn’t really be questioned. The school I went to from preschool through eighth grade was very rich in its own history—it has been around since 1868—and my mother thought the school paired with the faith would help me excel in both my studies and my religion. I really didn’t hate Catholic school. It wasn’t bad. There were some weird rules and traditions now that I think about it, but, nothing inherently bad. But, I felt like I was sort of cheated in a way. Since they focused so much on the Catholicism, I think my studies suffered. We would have to go to Mass every week either on Thursday or Friday, cutting out an hour from the academic school day. I also was a altar girl and would be

able to leave class to go serve at a funeral, wedding, or a mass. We had religion class every year, we had prayer services, and a lot of our academia was centered around religion. I remember being told that our material was a grade level above that of public schools. That wasn’t true. When I told our priest, who also served as an administrator in the school, that I was planning on going to a public high school, he looked at me with much concern and said “Oh honey, you know they have scholarships to the Catholic schools around here, right?” When freshman year rolled around, I was excited, and a little over-zealous because I signed up for every advanced class I could. I was drowning. I felt like I couldn’t keep up. I had been in “advanced” classes at my other school and that didn’t even help at all. I remember wishing I could go back to my school because it was so easy. That false sense of superiority that Catholic school gave me really affected how I see the church. It’s like they’re in this little bubble, and think that they are right no matter what or solely because they are religious. I know my mother was putting my best interest at heart when making this decision to pay for this education, but it seems like she was cheated as well. I didn’t get the education she sacrificed for.

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confessions of contrition

EXODUS

hroughout his tumultuous relationship with the Catholic Church, Anthony felt like he couldn’t be apart of the religion. He had many instances where he left and returned to the faith, with differing factors. The first time, he experienced some supernatural incidents that changed the way we look at God as a being and the “guarantee” of a happier afterlife. “Funny enough, both times I experienced something it was in the bathroom in our house in Birmingham. The first time wasn’t that scary, but definitely weird. I was brushing my teeth when a Coke can that was on the sink just started floating, and then dropped. I still cannot remember if that was totally real or was my mind, but I’m pretty certain it was real.” “Another time was when I was brushing my teeth again, and the door was open. The rest of the house had all the lights off and so it looked completely pitch black outside of the bathroom. As I was looking out into the hall, there was a black ghost hand thing that stretched itself into the bathroom, and then quickly dissolved into thin air. That really freaked me out. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I don’t think that could be true, because when I went back tomy bedroom, the basketball was spinning around by itself, so I knew something was going on.”

“Then, the final straw that both brought me back but also question the church was again, in my house in Birmingham, when I had a night terror. I was in my bedroom and I woke up at exactly midnight. I had my lamp on and sat straight up and looked down at the floor and there was this dog thing. It was basically a hell hound. It didn’t have eyes—it had like dark pits instead—and was as tall as my bed. It was standing in a pool of blood with its teeth bared, looking like it was about to jump on me. It was one of the most terrifying moments in my life. Thinking back on it now, I think it was showing me that this is what happened to my grandpa when he committed suicide. That if I followed his lead, I would be drug to hell by this thing, too. But it also made me think about why God would allow this to happen. And what is afterlife exactly? You don’t go straight to heaven or hell, do you? Is this purgatory, here on Earth? Where do these supernatural things live?” “It did bring me back to the church though, because it terrified the hell out of me. I figured if I would stay close to God, these things wouldn’t bother me. It worked for a while, at least.”

confessions of contrition

EXODUS

confessions of contrition

hen I was in eighth grade, I felt like I wanted to officially leave the Catholic church. In Catholic school, all of us are required to be officially confirmed in the Church, which is one of the seven sacraments. To say the least, it was a big deal. We prepared for it all of our eighth grade year in religion class. We picked out confirmation names (mine was Maximilian, after St. Maximilian. Honestly I just thought it sounded cool), studied the saint we named ourselves after, studied the faith in earnest, and practiced the ceremony several times. During this time, I really didn’t know if I wanted to be officially in the church. I didn’t feel like I was that good of a mouthpiece to be able to profess the faith with enthusiasm, because I wasn’t enthusiastic. It didn’t feel genuine. However, I thought I would just do it anyway to keep my mom happy. But one night, I did get mad and I told her that I didn’t want to be confirmed. She was really taken aback because she seemed to think I loved church and all I did was pray to Jesus.

She wanted me to be as devoted as her and feel like I was being saved. I felt really guilty. Should I be more excited about church? Is it okay that I don’t? I mean, whenever I went over to my dad’s for his weekend, we wouldn’t go to church and I wouldn’t object. It was my own private salvation. A Sunday off. I mean, I’d already gone to church during the week so that should’ve been enough, right? Needless to say, my mom was very disappointed. She did let me think about whether I wanted to get confirmed officially or not, and I really thought hard about it for the next few weeks. I decided that I already made it this far, so I should just go with it. I did end up being confirmed, but, now thinking in retrospect, how many kids or people felt the exact same way as me? Not wanting to be confirmed, but felt obligated to do so? Do they regret it now? I wouldn’t say I would regret it per say, but that I wish I didn’t feel like I was being judged for not wanting to be confirmed and let me decide if it was right for me.

EXODUS

confessions of contrition

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JUDGES

My lover’s got humour She’s the giggle at a funeral Knows everybody’s disapproval I should’ve worshipped her sooner If the Heavens ever did speak She is the last true mouthpiece Every Sunday’s getting more bleak A fresh poison each week ‘We were born sick, ‘ you heard them say it My church offers no absolutes She tells me ‘worship in the bedroom’ The only heaven I’ll be sent to Is when I’m alone with you I was born sick, but I love it Command me to be well Amen, Amen, Amen

confessions of contrition

Take me to church I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life HOZIER

JUDGES

PROVERBS

confessions of contrition

JUDGES

confessions of contrition

The church may have a lot of pitfalls, but if you look hard enough, you can find some gold.

PROVERBS

â&#x20AC;&#x153; I love this one because of how empowering it is for women. I think of all the strong women in my life when I read this! â&#x20AC;?

confessions of contrition

“ She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness. She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness. Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: ‘There are many virtous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!’ ” PROVERBS 31:25-29

PROVERBS

“ This verse reminds me that even if I feel like no one can help me, I can help myself and keep going because He is always with me.”

confessions of contrition

“ GOD is within her and she will not fall.” PSALMS 46:5

PROVERBS

â&#x20AC;&#x153; This makes me appreciate the little things in life and to always be grateful for what I have.â&#x20AC;?

confessions of contrition

â&#x20AC;&#x153; Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you of little faith? MATTHEW 6:27-30

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confessions of contrition

LAMENTATIONS

PROVERBS

confessions of contrition

y mother, one of the most devout Catholics that I know, even has had her faith shaken sometimes. After getting a divorce from my ex-stepdad in 2013, she often felt like she was alone. “I feel like I have been faithful and obedient and tried to raise you and Nathan [my brother] well, but I failed and have been punished for some reason.” The church turned its back on her when rumors were spread about the divorce, and even some of her close friends believed them, without verifying with her first. She feels as if she’s starting over in the middle of her life. “My faith has been shaken. It seems that the bad people keep moving forward and the ones that tried to live the faith have been left out or behind.” She also has come to realize how exclusive the church can be. “Gay, transgender, and divorced are some of the kinds of people that are ostracized by the church. It doesn’t sit well with me. [Because of this,] I have had the dark night of the souls experience where I have missed a lot of Mass and am questioning everything anymore. All I know is that man is the instrument to the destruction of God’s infinite love. Once we stop trying to interpret what God means or thinks, that’s when there will be real love and peace.”

PROVERBS

The Macabre Side of Growing Up Catholic

confessions of contrition

Nothing like a little blood and guts to spice up the religion! by Frank T. McAndrew, Ph.D.

LAMENTATIONS

here is an old saying that “The fish are the last to discover the sea.” The meaning of this, of course, is that when we are completely surrounded by something, it seems normal to the point of being invisible and we become oblivious to how it appears to outsiders. Having grown up in what comedian Jim Gaffigan might describe as a “Shiite” Irish Catholic family, and protected by 17 years of Catholic education (kindergarten through college), I was more or less immune to the ubiquitous and graphic gore surrounding almost everything in my Catholic world. In fact, the first time I remember thinking about it at all was on my wedding day when a Jewish friend who had apparently never been inside of an old-school blood and guts Catholic church was blown away by what he saw there. The graphic depictions of brutality on the stained glass windows and on the stations of the cross led him to admit that he too would hate the sons of bitches who had done all of those terrible things to Jesus. Until that moment, I don’t think that it had ever dawned on me how much Catholics celebrate death and bloodshed. Throughout my Catholic school days we would cheerfully sing songs at Mass with stanzas such as the following from a song entitled “Sons of God:” Sons of God, hear his holy word, Gather ‘round the table of the Lord. EAT HIS BODY! DRINK HIS BLOOD! And we’ll sing a SONG OF LOVE.

gang of boys, anxious to view the Christian “Mysteries,” became a mob and turned upon Tarcisius with fury. He went down under the blows, and it is believed that a fellow Christian drove off the mob and rescued the young acolyte. The mangled body of Tarcisius was carried back to the catacombs, but the boy died on the way from his injuries. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Callistus, and his relics are claimed by the church of San Silvestro in Capite. In the fourth century, Pope St. Damasus wrote a poem about this “boy-martyr of the Eucharist” and says that, like another St. Stephen, he suffered a violent death at the hands of a mob rather than give up the Sacred Body to ‘raging dogs.’” His story became well known when Cardinal Wiseman made it a part of his novel Fabiola, in which the story of the young acolyte is dramatized and a very moving account given of his martyrdom and death. Tarcisius, one of the patron saints of altar boys, has always been an example of youthful courage and devotion, and his story was one that was told again and again to urge others to a like heroism in suffering for their faith.” I am still not exactly sure what the intent of repeatedly telling us this story was, although it was clearly meant to inspire us. However, the message that was received was that we should aspire to be like Tarcisius and that if we played our cards right, we too, could be beaten to death by an angry mob and then be admired by others. Angela’s Ashes author, Frank McCourt, reflected on this peculiar tendency to make children reflect upon their own mortality when writing about his grim Catholic upbringing in Limerick, Ireland. According to McCourt, someone was always making him promise that he would die for something.

Perhaps the ultimate of macabre Catholic traditions is the preservation of the bodies and/or body parts of long-dead saints. Even in context, it is now hard for me to think of this as a “love song” unless you happen to be living on an island of cannibals. Other songs such as “Oh sacred head now wounded” with happy refrains like “Oh bleeding head so wounded, reviled and put to scorn” could also lighten the heart of any ten-year-old seeking an uplifting religious experience. [See the wonderful rendition of this song from Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ.] I suppose that none of this should be surprising when a religion celebrates events with names such as ”the murder of the holy innocents,” “the agony in the garden,” the “scourging at the pillar,” and the “crowning with thorns.”

Reminding Children of Their Own Mortality For Catholics, the highest admiration has always been reserved for those individuals who died for their faith, and the more gruesome the death, the more attention and esteem they earn. Very early in my elementary school years, we were regaled by the story of St. Tarcisius, a child martyr that is now the patron saint of altar boys. (Yes, I actually was an altar boy.) An account of the death of St. Tarcisius from the web page of the Catholic television network EWTN follows: “Tarcisius was a twelve-year-old acolyte during one of the fierce Roman persecutions of the third century, probably during that of Valerian. Each day, from a secret meeting place in the catacombs where Christians gathered for Mass, a deacon would be sent to the prisons to carry the Eucharist to those Christians condemned to die. At one point, there was no deacon to send and so St. Tarcisius, an acolyte, was sent carrying the “Holy Mysteries” to those in prison. On the way, he was stopped by boys his own age who were not Christians but knew him as a playmate and lover of games. He was asked to join their games, but this time he refused and the crowd of boys noticed that he was carrying something. Somehow, he was also recognized as a Christian, and the small

His amiable but shiftless father would stumble home drunk after a night on the town, roust his young children out of bed, and make them promise that they would be willing to “die for Ireland.” His schoolmasters regularly made him promise to “die for the faith if called upon.” In McCourt’s own words (p. 113), “The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.” McCourt wryly wondered why it always had to be about “dying for the faith” and why no one ever asked him to “go swimming for the faith” or to “eat candy for the faith.” Staying on message, the nuns that taught me at Gate of Heaven School in Dallas, Pennsylvania, rarely missed an opportunity to remind us that, “You know not the day nor the hour,” and every Ash Wednesday our parish priest would grind ashes into our foreheads while mumbling “Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” A suitable role model for adults is found in the personage of St. Blaise. Blaise was a physician in the early 6th century who is best remembered for having saved a young boy from choking to death on a fish bone. (Every year on the feast of St. Blaise (February 3rd) we would have our throats blessed by having our necks inserted between two large candles.) Anyway, right after healing the choking boy, Blaise was beaten, had his flesh ripped apart by iron combs designed to extract wool from sheep, and then beheaded as part of the local persecution of Christians. The conjunction of these two events were enough to enshrine him in our memories, and every February 3rd in the city of Dubrovnik, his head, both of his hands, and a bit of his throat are paraded around town. In Portugal, there is a “chapel of bones” built by a Franciscan monk in the 16th century. It contains the bones of 5,000 monks, and the phrase ’Melior est die mortis die nativitatis’ (’Better is the day of death than the day of birth’) is written on its roof.

confessions of contrition

Body Parts on Parade

Perhaps the ultimate of macabre Catholic traditions is the preservation of the bodies and/or body parts of long-dead saints. In my own hometown of Galesburg, Illinois, the body of a nine-year-old boy is preserved in a glass case inside one of the local Catholic churches. It looks like something that you might see in a spooky wax museum, and it sort of freaked my daughter out when she first saw it as a little girl. It is the actual body of St. Crescent, who was martyred in Rome during the Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians during the third century. St. Crescent had been entombed in the Roman catacombs until 1838, when the body was exhumed and entrusted to the religious order (the Rosminians) that eventually founded the first Catholic parish in Galesburg. The body was shipped to Illinois in the hope that it would help the church attract new followers, much as the freak shows outside of circus tents were designed to turn bystanders into paying customers for the big show inside. Local legend has it that it is only the presence of St. Crescent in our city that protects Galesburg from tornadoes. In the same vein (pardon the pun), the dried blood of St. Januarius is said to protect Naples, Italy, from volcanoes, earthquakes, and plagues. As evidenced by my one other encounter with the body parts of a saint, these relics are most effective if you publicly flaunt them at least once a year. (e.g., See the aforementioned story of St. Blaise.) In 2003, I was in Budapest with a small group of American academics. We were strolling around the streets taking in the sights when we came upon a procession of elaborately costumed people accompanied by musicians that sounded vaguely like a small town American junior high school marching band. There was a great deal of pomp and solemnity, and the focal point of the assemblage was a skeletal human right hand held aloft in a glass box. By luck, we had stumbled upon the annual Holy Right Hand Procession (link is external) in which the right hand of St. Stephen (the first Hungarian king and the patron saint of Hungary) is paraded around the city. I really did not think too much about this until my companions began talking about it. They found the whole affair to be grisly and more than a little bit creepy, and they were somewhat taken aback by my nonchalance. This became the first time I had ever been put in the position of trying to explain the Catholic rationale for such practices, and I do not think that it went very well. A certain degree of gullibility from the masses is required to maintain these corporeal celebrations. For example, my wife and I visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium, in the summer of 2013. The centerpiece of this magnificent church is a vial of blood allegedly drained from the body of Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. It was brought back to Europe by a guy returning from the crusades who claims to have received it as a reward for his great service in Jerusalem. I don’t know about you, but I would have at least required a certificate of authenticity like you get with autographed baseballs, but everyone seems to have just accepted his story as it was. Anyway, this vial of blood (or is it . . .?) became a big hit in the city and it too gets carted around town once a year during the annual Procession of the Holy Blood. On nonprocession days, one can view and worship the holy blood in the church under the watchful eye of a stern looking priest, following a donation to the basilica, of course. Background organ music adds to the sacred ambiance of the event, although the rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” that we heard when we were there pushed the entire scene into the realm of the surreal. In short, the world is apparently awash in the body parts of holy dead people, including the mummified head of St. Catherine of Siena, the tongue of St. Anthony of Padua, and the finger of St. Thomas the apostle. (Yes, the VERY finger that the doubting Thomas supposedly poked into the wounds of the risen Christ.) My favorite among these has to be the “Holy Foreskin” which was passed around Europe until the 18th century: It was believed to be the foreskin of the young circumcised Jesus Christ himself. Mother Cabrini, the first canonized American Saint, has spread herself fairly thin in the years since her death, In 1931, her body was exhumed as part of the canonization process. At that time, her head was removed and it is preserved in the chapel of the motherhouse of her order of nuns in Rome. One of her arms is at the national shrine in Chicago, and most of the rest of her body is at a shrine in New York.

All of this makes me wonder: what we will be treated to next. Perhaps the penis of St. Dick or the breasts of St. Tittia? A sign that an individual has truly secured the status of a holy person with a lock on future sainthood is to display “stigmata,” which are marks, sores, or even bleeding from the hands, wrists, and feet corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. (Apparently, mere rectal bleeding due to hemorrhoids doesn’t even get you out of purgatory.) Such a person is known as a stigmatic or a stigmatist. This phenomenon was parodied by actor Eric Idle in an otherwise forgettable movie called “Nuns on the Run” in which Idle’s character is a crook who disguises himself as a nun to hide from the authorities in a convent. He introduces himself to the Mother Superior as “Sister Euphemia of the Five Wounds . . . five wounds for short!”

And Let’s Not Forget the Crusades and the Inquisition Allow me to return to the topic of the crusades for a moment. I grew up believing that crusaders were courageous heroes who risked their lives to return the “Holy Lands” to Christian control, just as God would have wanted. My 4th grade Catholic school history book (Before Our Nation Began, pp. 158-159) described the crusades and crusaders as follows: “The Pope [Urban II] asked the people of Western Europe to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks and to help the Eastern Empire. . . . Plans were made for a great war against the Moslem Turks. The war was called a Crusade from the Latin word which means “cross.” The soldiers who took part in the Crusade were called Crusaders. . . . Why did so many men wish to become Crusaders? Some probably longed for adventure. Some nobles saw a chance to gain new wealth. But a large number of people wished to go on the Crusades because they were good Catholics. They wished to serve God. The Pope had asked them to rescue the Holy Land, and they were answering the call of the Pope.” The zeal of the crusaders coupled with their lack of squeamishness about blood and gore led to some real atrocities. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, in his book entitled The Better Angels of Our Nature (pp.140-141), documented the creativity employed by the crusaders in pursuit of their goals: “Between 1095 and 1208 Crusader armies were mobilized to fight a “just war” to retake Jerusalem from the Muslim Turks, earning them remission from their sins and a ticket to heaven. They massacred Jewish communities on the way, and after besieging and sacking Nicea, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, they slaughtered their Muslim and Jewish populations. [Political scientist R. J.] Rummel estimates the death toll at 1 million. The world had around 400 million people at the time, about a sixth of the number of the mid 20th century, so the death toll of the Crusader massacres as a proportion of the world’s population would today come out to about 6 million, equivalent to the Nazi’s genocide of the Jews.” In the 13th century the Cathars of southern France embraced the Albigensian heresy, according to which there are two gods, one of good and one of evil. An infuriated papacy, in collusion with the king of France, sent waves of armies to the region, which killed around 200,000 of them. To give you a sense of the armies’ tactics, after capturing the city of Bram in 1210 they took a hundred of the defeated soldiers, cut off their noses and upper lips, gouged out the eyes of all but one, and had him lead the others to the city of Cabaret to terrorize its citizens into surrendering.” Do not even get me started on the Inquisition, which killed more than 300,000 suspected infidels, heretics, Jews, witches, and undesirable characters in general (Rummel, 1997). Many of these killings occurred via the most painful of torturous deaths (such as being “broken on the wheel”) that are so fiendish and horrifying that even I choose not to go there. This essay is not an indictment of Catholicism in particular; it just happens to be the religious tradition with which I am most familiar. There is certainly no shortage of ferocity and bloodshed in other religions (Islam, for example), but it is curious how those living within their personal theological fishbowls so clearly see the barbarism of other people’s practices while celebrating the holiness of their own.

LAMENTATIONS

confessions of contrition

LAMENTATIONS

ANTHONY

confessions of contrition

ANTHONY

I want to be removed and stay removed. With all these things that I’m saying, I still respect it. It’s my roots it’s where I come from. I’m not gonna close it off completely. I’ll take the good things and go from there. I respect it mostly because my parents really believe in it and if it’s given them some solace, and comfort, then I’m happy that it does. If they asked me to go to church with them, I’d go, out of respect for them.

confessions of contrition

ANTHONY

confessions of contrition

ISABELLA

I still struggle with the guilt of being intimate before matrimony and sometimes that guilt can drive a wedge between what I want and even my partner and I. It’s not something I’m proud of and I work hard everyday to try and overcome it because I know what it means to lead a life of giving, empathy, and healing. My whole career is based around these things and I felt a calling to do God’s work in the form of nursing. That is what should matter most. I pray one day God will grant me the release and tell me I can let go and just focus on what truly matters. It will be a long journey but I’m always up for an adventure.

confessions of contrition

Illustration by Manny Vargas 59

ISABELLA

MOM

confessions of contrition

MOM

Illustration by Manny Vargas

confessions of contrition

Mary led me to Catholicism but always pointed me to her son Jesus. I felt his comfort during my journey. I once smelled roses when I was in the church Our Lady of Good Council with Monsignor Blacet. He told me that was a sign of Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence. Although there are bad things that have happened with the Church, I find a lot of good in it as well.

MOM

confessions of contrition

“ We love Jesus but you done learned a lot from Satan.” KANYE WEST

MOM

To the Catholic Church:

confessions of contrition

I don’t condemn or hate any of you. I think there are good things that can come from the faith, but as we all know, the good always is paired with the bad. That’s the balance of our universe, keeping us in check. Would you worship God if not for the fear of Satan? Maybe, but God would hold a lot less power. You need the bad to see the good. Yin and yang. Good and evil. Justice and injustice. So, for all of the good things that the church brings, they’re backed by the bad things. If God is so open and loves everyone unconditionally, then why does he “tell” you to be so hateful to the LGBTQA+ community? I’m not saying all Catholics are, but, sermons being received by young and impressionable people can have lasting effects. I remember when I was about 10 or so, how the worst insult you could call someone was gay. I am really disheartened by that, especially to all of my closeted friends, family and everyone else, who had to hear that growing up. Around that same time, I visited my cousin’s house in the rural Missouri. I remember one of the younger ones, about six, saying “Wow, that’s so gay” to something he didn’t like. And the response from his older brother, who was about eight at the time asked, “The good gay or bad gay?” What is good and bad gay? Let me quote our good pal, Saint Paul, here: Romans 2: 1-4 “We are no different, so none of us has any right to judge.” Remember that God is the only one that can judge, right? How do you know if God does or does not accept these people? I think it’s impossible to know until you die, honestly. Just let God do his job and you keep living your best, non-judgmental Christian life. Now, I don’t want to go into every single thing that I think is bad about the Church, because that might possibly be the length of this book. But I think the same statement can be applied to anything I could bring up: it is not your place to judge. You are not God, you are human. You have fallacies that God doesn’t, making your judgment biased and skewed. Since God is the only perfect being known to man, then please, like I said, let Him do His job.

MOM

confessions of contrition

REVELATION

confessions of contrition

This is not a book bashing the Catholic Church. This is simply to bring awareness to the damaging effects that it can have on those who have been forced into the religion, and have never really identified with it. All in all, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think the church is inherently badâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mostly the people who make it bad. Which can be said with anything, but, as a religion, I feel like the people who represent it should act according to what the religion teaches. Most of the time, they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. This is an anthology of interviews, testimonies, revelations, and confessions. I hope it can teach you something, give some sort of solace, bring new insights, and be a refreshing outlook.

REVELATION