[hineh mah tov umah nayim shevet ahim gam yahad]
So yesterday I was talking to my sister online. We weren't chatting about anything in particular, just catching up; and then she said, suddenly, that she wanted to leave the Catholic Church.
I had my religious crisis way back when - about the same time she's having hers. Looking back on it, I can see plainly how all my wonderings and musings and fears and crises were the same boring ones everyone who has ever given serious thought to the existence of God has gone through - but I can also remember how they felt so all-consuming then, and I know now how deeply that crisis of faith impacted me. It made my faith near impossible to shake; a thing that outside forces could not easily touch. It was important. When my sister said that, I stopped what I was doing and listened.
Here is what she said, in part:
"I'm just very frustrated in how conservative and monarchist Catholicism is
How it won't let you marry a woman that you love
or me be a priest."
...first off, she's thirteen. Thirteen. Let me just throw that out there.
But I've been thinking about this since she said it, and-- and I thought when this happened, that I would have advice for her. That I could tell her all the beautiful things I learned about God when I tried to walk away from the Church, and all the beautiful things that brought me back. I wanted to tell her what a glorious thing the Church was, and give her all the reasons that she shouldn't turn her back on it so lightly. But she said that, and... I just felt helpless. Because she's right.
I have no defense to offer. She knows I'm bisexual. She knows I don't consider this and my religion mutually exclusive. She doesn't consider it so, either. She has a faith that is deep and strong for someone her age, and the brains not to believe blindly. But she also has a mind that questions these things in a way that I think I have been afraid to.
I feel like a shitty role model. How can I offer an explanation for this? When she says something as kind and good as "I cannot support an institution that denies the right of marriage to my older sister" - an extension of her support that shows that she has a thousand times more courage than I do - how do I say, "Well-- I love the Catholic Church anyway." How do I justify that? How do I tell her that I support this institution despite the fact that I have also told her, at length, how much I deplore exactly the kind of close-minded, patriarchal, hyper-conservative bullshit that the Church openly and proudly supports?
It's not good enough to tell her that I believe in the power of the Church to change. I think it will change; but I don't think it will do so in my lifetime. How do I admit that I live a double life - that my personal faith life is strong and well-maintained, but that no one in my church must ever know that I like women, that I think denying women birth control is bullshit, that I am staunchly pro-choice? Seeing my little sister, with all her strength, with all her confidence, with all her belief that she must stand for what is good and right and just in the world, and having to tell her that I only love Catholicism when I am not thinking too hard about it-- to let her know gently that what the Church believes and what the people in it believe are so often such vastly different things-- she is not the type of child who will put up with a lie like that.
It makes me question very strongly what it says to her that I am still such a staunch defender of the Church. It makes me feel that I need to think about this a little harder in the coming days. I won't ask her to stay in the Church if she doesn't want to. Catholicism works for me, but I understand that it does not work for everyone. I just... I need to think. I need to find a way to explain to her what Catholicism does for me that does not return to the fact that someday, I might be heavily at odds with the Church. That really, I already should be.
I don't want her to feel like she believes more in the fight for my rights than I do. I don't want that incredible love - that desire to turn away from the church into which she was born because of me - to be something that she thinks I don't appreciate. I don't want to be a hypocrite. And I don't want to leave my Church.
I just want to be myself, and love God, and pray with good people, and not lie to anyone.
I had my religious crisis way back when - about the same time she's having hers. Looking back on it, I can see plainly how all my wonderings and musings and fears and crises were the same boring ones everyone who has ever given serious thought to the existence of God has gone through - but I can also remember how they felt so all-consuming then, and I know now how deeply that crisis of faith impacted me. It made my faith near impossible to shake; a thing that outside forces could not easily touch. It was important. When my sister said that, I stopped what I was doing and listened.
Here is what she said, in part:
"I'm just very frustrated in how conservative and monarchist Catholicism is
How it won't let you marry a woman that you love
or me be a priest."
...first off, she's thirteen. Thirteen. Let me just throw that out there.
But I've been thinking about this since she said it, and-- and I thought when this happened, that I would have advice for her. That I could tell her all the beautiful things I learned about God when I tried to walk away from the Church, and all the beautiful things that brought me back. I wanted to tell her what a glorious thing the Church was, and give her all the reasons that she shouldn't turn her back on it so lightly. But she said that, and... I just felt helpless. Because she's right.
I have no defense to offer. She knows I'm bisexual. She knows I don't consider this and my religion mutually exclusive. She doesn't consider it so, either. She has a faith that is deep and strong for someone her age, and the brains not to believe blindly. But she also has a mind that questions these things in a way that I think I have been afraid to.
I feel like a shitty role model. How can I offer an explanation for this? When she says something as kind and good as "I cannot support an institution that denies the right of marriage to my older sister" - an extension of her support that shows that she has a thousand times more courage than I do - how do I say, "Well-- I love the Catholic Church anyway." How do I justify that? How do I tell her that I support this institution despite the fact that I have also told her, at length, how much I deplore exactly the kind of close-minded, patriarchal, hyper-conservative bullshit that the Church openly and proudly supports?
It's not good enough to tell her that I believe in the power of the Church to change. I think it will change; but I don't think it will do so in my lifetime. How do I admit that I live a double life - that my personal faith life is strong and well-maintained, but that no one in my church must ever know that I like women, that I think denying women birth control is bullshit, that I am staunchly pro-choice? Seeing my little sister, with all her strength, with all her confidence, with all her belief that she must stand for what is good and right and just in the world, and having to tell her that I only love Catholicism when I am not thinking too hard about it-- to let her know gently that what the Church believes and what the people in it believe are so often such vastly different things-- she is not the type of child who will put up with a lie like that.
It makes me question very strongly what it says to her that I am still such a staunch defender of the Church. It makes me feel that I need to think about this a little harder in the coming days. I won't ask her to stay in the Church if she doesn't want to. Catholicism works for me, but I understand that it does not work for everyone. I just... I need to think. I need to find a way to explain to her what Catholicism does for me that does not return to the fact that someday, I might be heavily at odds with the Church. That really, I already should be.
I don't want her to feel like she believes more in the fight for my rights than I do. I don't want that incredible love - that desire to turn away from the church into which she was born because of me - to be something that she thinks I don't appreciate. I don't want to be a hypocrite. And I don't want to leave my Church.
I just want to be myself, and love God, and pray with good people, and not lie to anyone.