Hell In A Hand Basket

“You people don’t celebrate your faith, you mourn it.” –Dogma

I’m hoping not to turn away any potential readers here, because I do respect all faiths and walks of life. But I have been struggling with something that began irking me the moment I found out I was pregnant with my first child, and continues to rear its ugly head now and again. I received another invitation to a Christening in the mail recently. It’s for my cousin’s baby, and it was not an unexpected invite. Of course we are going, but with every invitation I receive to a childhood Christian rite, I go through the same internal drama.

I was raised Roman Catholic. My family went to a little Italian church in my home town with several mean old priests that ran the place. They had no problem telling us on a fairly regular basis how rotten we were, and we were all destined for Hell. Hell. It was an ever present fear throughout my childhood. It was through the teachings of this church that I learned how flawed we all are. How inherently destined for sin the human race is, and therefore how much we need to keep going to church to be resolved (oh, and don’t forget to put your money in the basket while you’re begging for that forgiveness). The sermons were also just miserable. I didn’t leave church feeling refreshed, I felt defeated.

I had so many questions about the teachings of the church that were never answered. I was simply expected to follow the rules. And I’m not talking about the commandments, most of which are pretty cut and dry as far as right and wrong goes. I’m talking about actual mandate by the church itself. Stances on birth control, abortion, priests rules for relationships, all the big stuff, but also the small annoying stuff like (at my time) why girls can’t be alter attendants. I could go on and on, but there was one defining moment for me when I knew I had no place in this organization. Upon time to make my confirmation, our teacher was doling out responsibilities to our class for the night of the rite itself. There were tasks for which only the boys were allowed to volunteer, and I was quick to speak my mind about such blatant chauvinism. After much argument, one of the boys in my class said, “Oh, go bake a cake” (those of my generation in the Catholic church may have had the same experience in that all the women got to do was run the bake sales). I looked to the teacher for support, and he simply laughed and said it was not a bad idea. I asked my parents to let me out of it. Their response was, “get confirmed and then you can make up your own mind about whether or not to stay with the church.” I got confirmed, and never looked back.

The thing is, it’s not just the organization. Somewhere along the lines there was also a crisis of faith…if I ever had faith at all. Beyond the BS about women being treated unfairly, and all the other wrong stuff that goes on in the church (money, sex scandals, lavish lifestyles on the peoples dime, you name it), I still was not buying their teachings. My husband was in agreement with me, and when it came time to get married, we had a decision to make. Upon my parents’ urgings (pressure), I actually went back to the church and asked them to marry me. This was actually during the height of the Boston Diocese pedophile scandal, and they REFUSED ME. The priest said no because I was already living in sin and was not a regular participant. I couldn’t believe they were throwing away the “donation”, but it was just fine with me. To not be completely disowned, we married in an adorable Unitarian church that had very lax rules but was still definitely Christian.

It was during that time that I reacquainted myself with mysticism (a discussion best saved for another post), and shortly afterwards, my first child was born. We decided that we could not make our child a part of an organization that we could not believe in, and opted not to Christen her. After much displeasure from my family (my grandmother may never forgive me), we are holding firm to our decision. We now have two children, and want the decision to explore their spirituality when they are older to be their own choice. But as more and more children around me are Christened, I still hear old Father Turillo’s voice in the back of my head, “You’re going to Hell.”