An A-B convo. CYOur way out.
When I hit CNN Center yesterday evening to grab coffee for a co-worker and myself, there were -- I kid you not -- like 14,000 Catholic Youth Organization members in attendance at some convention in ATL. And they were all hungry. So during my 47-minute wait to spend 8.2 seconds ordering and paying for two coffees, I amused myself by watching the teenaged future standard-bearers of my religion walk around in hypercolor tie-dyed t-shirts, ratty jeans and those ridiculous-looking Dr. Seuss Cat-In-The-Hat stovepipe toppers. It was Catholicpalooza, but with everyone moshing for Mary.Seriously, though, it was pretty cool to be in the company of so many young Catholics from all kinds of different places. Because if you live here in the South and you're Catholic, you're way outnumbered. Should that matter? No. Does it? I think so, sometimes.
At my high school, the total Catholic representation in my class was... me. And one other girl. Our classmates? Pretty much all Baptists and I swear they all attended the same church, headed up by the father of one of the most popular girls in school. She was generally nice and we got along OK. Then, one morning in homeroom senior year when she was apparently tired of talking to her real friends, she asked me "So, like, what do you Catholics, like, DO at your church?" Worship... God?, I said slowly, wondering where this could possibly be going. And then she hits me with the Two part of this One-Two punch she'd started:
"Like... do y'all believe in JESUS? Are y'all CHRISTIANS?"
Well, seeing as how one of Catholicism's principal tenets is that the "Church is truly, though of course not physically, the Body of Christ, made up of members both on earth and in heaven," (thanks Wikipedia!) yeah -- I'd say so. I just kind of sat there so stunned at the question that I couldn't answer right away. Because no one had ever asked me that and it never occurred to me that anyone would.
She kind of tilted her head to the side, like teachers do when they think they've busted you in front of the whole class for not having cracked a book all quarter. I remember she had this smarmy little thin-lipped smirk going. And her friends in homeroom who went to her church were all hanging around by then, waiting for my answer. How often do you get to put a possible pagan on the spot before first period Calculus? Fun, fun. I think I managed this kind of weak "Yeah" that did no favors for a religion then nearing 2000 years old.
"Reeeeally. I mean, like, I thought so but I didn't know." She didn't know. And her dad was a minister. YOU Catholics. YOUR church. Are YOU Christians? I felt strange and isolated at that moment, just for being the one person in homeroom who didn't go to her dad's church or one like it. WE were different, weird, wrong.
This weekend there are a ton of "our" kids in town. And they all seem nice enough, even if their fashion sense is a little stuck in the pre-"Friends" early '90s era. For 47 minutes last night, I got the feeling that the Church will be OK in this generation's hands, the hands that weren't pointing fingers in a smarmy "Us vs. You" manner but were text-messaging friends not here in Atlanta -- friends who may or may not be Catholic, who may or may not believe in Jesus, but who were nevertheless interested in the real spiritual mysteries of life: like why anyone still wears those goofy-looking Dr. Seuss hats in public.
Note: I moved this from my xanga blog since anything I post there that's remotely deep gets ignored.
posted by rekkidbraka @ 2:37 PM
7 Comments:
You see I never got the text messaging thing. I understand it's less intrusive than calling someone and less time consuming considering some people take 5-10 minutes of small talk before you can discuss anything with them. I guess I just never saw it as an option. I would rather call or email myself.
As to the whole religion thing, I never really discussed my faith with a lot of people. I like to consider myself a non-practicing Catholic. I'm pretty much Catholic by my parents doing. We were the church every Sunday and on ALL holy days of obligation Catholics. We also did rosaries every day in October and my mom and dad were very into the church. They joined groups and participated in activities. I even taught Sunday school. I was completely indoctrinated into Catholicism until I hit college. That's when it all changed. So now, I pretty much believe in God or some higher power but not much else that's Cathlic or otherwise. I go to church on Easter and Christmas because it's important to my mom but that's about it. I'm glad that so many can revel in their spirituality and closeness to god, but, I am just not one of them anymore.
I just resent it when other people feel like it's OK to take digs at me for being Catholic but it's not OK for me to say anything that isn't positive about being non-Catholic. And I don't slag other religions, mainly because I'm not that kind of person. Nor do I presume to be such an authority on faiths that I feel a need to lambaste one religion in order to satisfy an apparent mass market appetite for prejudice. (See Dan Brown, "author" of The DaVinci Code. I'd rather eat nails than read his poorly-researched, anti-Catholic "book" that everyone is so crazy about.)
Personally, I don't care what religion people follow - or if they follow a religion at all. I have Jewish friends, Muslim friends, Protestant friends, friends who don't really cotton to any faith and I'm a better person for it. But don't take me to task for who I am or what I believe. We'll all see how things end up in the long run anyway.
Ah, but how can you properly rant about that book without having suffered through it personally?
I read it just so that the little art history geek in me could yell "That DaVinci paintings was on panel, not on canvas. Canvas wasn't used in the Renaissance. Sheeshers!"
As for it being anti-Catholic. Hmm... It's definitely anti-Opus Dei, and I guess it implicates the upper levels of the Papacy in a conspiracy, but it's not really against the larger Catholic Church, or Catholics in general. It's really just too stupid to take seriously. The Catholic half of my family passed around a copy, and generally agreed that although the idea of a murderous plot to hide the fact that Jesus had descendents was inane, it was too poorly written to be offensive, but written just well enough to be shallowly entertaining.
It annoys me that he can write all these books, make stuff up and not be required to say that he just pulled everything out of his ass. And then there are all those equally poorly researched books explaining the DaVinci Code and my inner librarian just want to scream from the misinformation.
Did you see "Dogma" or "The Last Temptation of Christ"? What did you think of those?
OY. Ignorance is gross. In high school, a question I got quite often was, "What church do you go to?" It took me a long time to stop feeling awkward as I replied, "Well, we don't," and eventually I figured out how to politely respond to attempts at evangelism, too. I never had a concise answer, however, to the "So you don't believe in anything?" that sometimes followed. What a stupid thing to say. Everyone believes in something, whether it's a higher power or scientific knowledge or the sun rising in the east or the existence of Pop-Tarts.
But seriously? Tye-Die t-shirts? Not so much.
The most interesting part of my personal experience is that the only Catholics in my immediate here-in-ATL family are my father, mother and myself. My mom converted when she married my dad but my sister and nieces are Protestant. I should have made it a bit more clear above when I mentioned "other people" making thinly-veiled anti-Catholic remarks to me; I was talking, really, about some of those family members.
Were it an acquaintance or even a stranger, I wouldn't sweat it too much. But having your own family say things to you, directly, like "I don't believe in the Catholic Church and when I asked my reverend if I had to say the word 'catholic' in the Nicene Creed because I don't want to since I don't believe in Catholicism and he said that I don't have to," I just sit there, look at them and think How would you like it if I were saying this to you about the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian or Baptist faiths you follow? How would this make you feel?
Note: This Nicene Creed conversation actually happened with a really, really close family member. When I told her that 'catholic' in that sense means 'universal', not anything specific in context to the Roman Catholic Church (which she should have known; she's smart enough), she got immediately defensive - angry even - and spouted out that "Well, I don't believe in the Catholic Church and I'm NOT saying it!" line to me. At the time, she and her family were attending an Episcopal church; they're now Presbyterian, or so they say, even though her kids and husband were baptized Episcopal. But I wonder what her Episcopal minister was thinking, giving her the go-ahead to ix-nay the word 'catholic' in the Nicene Creed? Wouldn't he know the context of 'catholic' therein?
Here's something Manta and I could put on the old English Major/Librarian Caps in order to discuss for hours: If you don't actually say all the words in an established creed, especially one bearing such religious significance like the Nicene Creed, are you really saying the creed - like, spiritually? I say no, but that's me. Debate would rage on.
Oh yes, that's a really interesting topic. You know me so well.
First off, that a minister wouldn't know the difference between "Catholic" and "catholic" is unbelievable. I have two theories. One: He was ordained by a drag queen named Elvis in Las Vegas. Two: your family member wouldn't get off his back and he just agreed to make her go away.
As for the creed ::ponders:: Well, obviously in the example you gave, I would agree.
For instance, in Judaism, certain prayers must be recited in Hebrew by a minimum of ten adult males. Now, if I recite the same prayer in English by myself, would it count? There was an established form, and I didn't follow it. According to some, my prayer would be spiritually worthless.
In my opinion, it's a matter of personal faith. If the prayer has meaning to me, the rules set by the larger organization are irrelevant. Keep in mind, however, that I was tossed out of Judaism on my ass and if this were Biblical times, I would have been stoned to death years ago.
But I suppose that creeds are different than prayers, in that they're a way of everyone affirming their belief in the same thing. If you have a different version, you're completely missing the point. Heh. She's basically creating a not-so-great schism. A denomination of one.
Her call, I guess. I thought it was a silly thing to get up in arms over, much less even bug a minister about. My take is that your latter theory is on the money.
See, the thing is, I didn't even really care about this until she just kept on and ON about it, like I was supposed to sit there and listen and nod my head and, in essence, agree with her railing about Catholicism -- while she knows I'm Catholic -- by not speaking up. But the deity or non-deity or spiritual force or non-spiritual force or whatever or not of your choosing or non-choosing help me if I dared -- DARED -- say a negative word about what she believes; that's when you get the "Well, I'm NOT blahblahfishcakes!" snappy smackdown response that means for you to zip it. It's like this with politics, too, so I just absolutely avoid these subjects with her since we are so close. I love this relative more than anyone else in the family except for my parents, but this "my way or the highway" attitude gets old. Really old.
Am I this awesome devout Catholic who attends Mass like I should? No. Do I wish I were? Sometimes. Should I learn more about my religion? Absolutely. Do I agree with everything Catholicism teaches or promotes? No. I think there's room for positive growth in all religions. Would I ever consider converting to another religion? Honestly, no. For all its faults, Catholicism works for me, generally speaking. The ancient ceremony and ritual involved in the faith, to me, is incredibly beautiful and spiritually affirming. That the Church and its disciples, from the Pope on down to the poorest peasant worshippers in the most far-flung rural parishes, have felt a need to preserve these specific aspects of worship over so many centuries tells me that there is indeed something incredibly special, unique and undeniably holy about them.
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