It's a funny thing, being raised Catholic. For many years, I didn't know anything different. I can't say that I "believed" in anything in particular, but the state of being Catholic (going to church every Sunday and zoning out, shuffling off to Catholic school, feeling guilty about everything) seemed somehow inevitable.
When I went to college, there were people there who grew up blissfully agnostic but mysteriously were interested in learning about all things religious. My friend "Joanna," for example, once asked me about the significance of the Virgin Mary in my upbringing as a Catholic. It was like she'd asked some gum-snapping, remedial-English sixth grader how to diagram a sentence. "Huh?" I think I responded, as my eyes glazed over. I couldn't imagine how she could be interested in something so incredibly tedious.
Because although I was raised Catholic through and through--I was baptized, delivered to church every Sunday, received my "first Communion" and was even "confirmed" into the church while in the second grade (confirmation is when you make the well-reasoned, grown-up decision to commit yourself to the Catholic church for life)--it's not like I ever really "believed" in it. When times got tough, for example, you wouldn't find me "praying to God" or anything. The fact of being a Catholic seemed like so much pomp and circumstance. I mean, my parents were probably going through the motions in order to "bring me up right" or something. And meanwhile, I was raising my eyebrows at the whole display. So what was the point?
After about 20 years of critical thought, I've determined that the point was guilt and sex--more or less in equal measures, and ideally mixed together uncomfortably. Like John Waters said, "Thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty." I think this is a generous and positive way at looking at the after-effects of Catholicism. In other words, there are some benefits, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
I remember being in junior high, and overhearing "Mary McDonald," one of the popular girls, earnestly explaining to someone or other how she would NEVER drink or smoke and certainly wouldn't "fool around" with any boys to prove any sort of point. Naturally, I didn't want to be anything like her. I made the mental note to define myself in opposition: "Drink, smoke and slut around."
Which is all well and good, but not necessarily when you're an awkward, unattractive and severely introverted young teenager. It was during these supremely uncomfortable years that I often reflected painfully upon the only "sex ed" conversation I ever had with my mother.
One day when I was nine years old, my mom pulled me aside for a brief sexual education discussion. "Shannon, men will say anything to get you into bed," said my mom, as my personality split into two. Her method for easing into this revelation is lost to me now, so traumatic was it to hear this at the age of nine. But she made her point--"Boys are out to get you! And it's up to you to protect your honor."
Seriously, nothing could have been further from the truth once I got "out there." I can't say that there was a steady stream of young men murmuring over-the-top compliments to lure me into the back of their Chevettes. They will say "anything"? How about finding one in the first place?
Even when I did manage to trick some young man into accompanying me into the woods next to the Minnehaha Creek, nothing was ever free and easy about it. Take my first boyfriend, for example. To my utter confusion, one romantic evening he suggested that he turn himself in for an an attempted (consensually attempted, I had assumed) sexual assault (??).
The wisdom of time has informed me that he was probably just trying to break up with me. But what if I'd agreed? Would he still be in jail, instead of designing video games in Seattle?
It's stuff like this that makes me doubtful about having kids of my own. Seriously, what ridiculous advice would I provide to my unborn daughter? "When he declares himself a rapist--call his bluff"?
To be safe, I'll probably need to send her to Catholic school, so she has something to rebel against. And I guess there you find the point of Catholicism--to have something to live in opposition to.
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