God's Bureaucracy
I figured out why I've stopped going to Church. There's too much paperwork.
Let me start at the beginning. My beginning, not Genesis. And the beginning of the story, not January 1975. I don't think anyone wants to sit around for that story.
It begins wth my brother asking me to be a godfather. This surprised me, made my eyes go all wide and introduced a drop-jawed countenance. My brother (long-standing Catholic, 1 wife, 1 house in suburbs, nuclear family , the Moral Majority would love him) was asking me to look after the spiritual well-being of his first offspring. He was probably figuring that if I screwed this one up, he'd have at least two others to keep away from me. To be a godfather, you have to be Catholic. I'm not, technically a Catholic, even though I've tasted the bread because I was never Confirmed. Never got around to it, and it never really interested me. I related to God the same way I related to my dad -- we disagreed, and were kind of distant, but still familiy and I got around to see him when I could.
I commenced looking for the the instructions of how to be Confirmed in the Catholic Faith. The instructions were easy to find, but not follow. The wanted me to send them my baptismal certificate. I had never seen my certificate, my parents didn't have it and the church where I was baptised had closed down (St Rita's, Haverhill, MA) and the records had gone somewhere. So I had to muck around with the Boston Diosese and figure out that it had gone to All Saints. So I found All Saints and called.
The one in Ohio.
But I had to be on the phone with them for an hour to find that out. After that I did find my certificate at the correct parish and had it sent to me.
The other think that they wanted before I could sign up for the confirmation class was the signature of my church pastor. My church pastor? I hadn't had a church in years, I just went to the one closest. I found out to have a church you have to sign up at the church, and they wanted your name, original church and a bunch of other information. And I had to do all of this in a week.
I rushed off to church last Saturday, and sat straight up in the pew, listening and waiting for the service to be done. I had no idea what the pastor (Father John Smegal) at St. Brigid's parish was going to say, but accusations of hellfire, and having to rush to confession or maybe kill a lamb were running through my head. Various opening gambits of conversation humble: "I know I'm not worthy to have you sign this, but . . .", "
nonchalant, "Could you sign this, please."
Sneaky, "Very nice ceremony, I love what you did with the homily, could you sign this, your cassock is looking especially religious today. . ."
Wrathful, "Sign this, bitch or I'm going to pull this church down around you and violate you with plaster baby jesus . . . "
Yeah, alone in my head can get pretty weird, but I really didn't know what to expect and was making a huge deal out of it to myself, because when I did ask him, he was incredibly pleasant, and shared my opinion that it was a little ridiculus to make people jump through the paperwork to get confirmed.
So I now have various pieces of paper saying that I can be taught to be a good Catholic. Now let's see if they believe me. . .
Let me start at the beginning. My beginning, not Genesis. And the beginning of the story, not January 1975. I don't think anyone wants to sit around for that story.
It begins wth my brother asking me to be a godfather. This surprised me, made my eyes go all wide and introduced a drop-jawed countenance. My brother (long-standing Catholic, 1 wife, 1 house in suburbs, nuclear family , the Moral Majority would love him) was asking me to look after the spiritual well-being of his first offspring. He was probably figuring that if I screwed this one up, he'd have at least two others to keep away from me. To be a godfather, you have to be Catholic. I'm not, technically a Catholic, even though I've tasted the bread because I was never Confirmed. Never got around to it, and it never really interested me. I related to God the same way I related to my dad -- we disagreed, and were kind of distant, but still familiy and I got around to see him when I could.
I commenced looking for the the instructions of how to be Confirmed in the Catholic Faith. The instructions were easy to find, but not follow. The wanted me to send them my baptismal certificate. I had never seen my certificate, my parents didn't have it and the church where I was baptised had closed down (St Rita's, Haverhill, MA) and the records had gone somewhere. So I had to muck around with the Boston Diosese and figure out that it had gone to All Saints. So I found All Saints and called.
The one in Ohio.
But I had to be on the phone with them for an hour to find that out. After that I did find my certificate at the correct parish and had it sent to me.
The other think that they wanted before I could sign up for the confirmation class was the signature of my church pastor. My church pastor? I hadn't had a church in years, I just went to the one closest. I found out to have a church you have to sign up at the church, and they wanted your name, original church and a bunch of other information. And I had to do all of this in a week.
I rushed off to church last Saturday, and sat straight up in the pew, listening and waiting for the service to be done. I had no idea what the pastor (Father John Smegal) at St. Brigid's parish was going to say, but accusations of hellfire, and having to rush to confession or maybe kill a lamb were running through my head. Various opening gambits of conversation humble: "I know I'm not worthy to have you sign this, but . . .", "
nonchalant, "Could you sign this, please."
Sneaky, "Very nice ceremony, I love what you did with the homily, could you sign this, your cassock is looking especially religious today. . ."
Wrathful, "Sign this, bitch or I'm going to pull this church down around you and violate you with plaster baby jesus . . . "
Yeah, alone in my head can get pretty weird, but I really didn't know what to expect and was making a huge deal out of it to myself, because when I did ask him, he was incredibly pleasant, and shared my opinion that it was a little ridiculus to make people jump through the paperwork to get confirmed.
So I now have various pieces of paper saying that I can be taught to be a good Catholic. Now let's see if they believe me. . .