I've been thinking a lot lately about my beliefs, my life long Catholic faith and how we have been on a collision course for years. This latest crisis - the Archbishop's position on the proposed marriage amendment which is on the ballot in Minnesota this fall, and the recent papal attack on religious sisters in this country both sadden and dismay me.
A daughter of "staunch Catholics, " a product of sixteen years of Catholic education, I seldom questioned this part of me while I was growing up. But faith never comes without doubt and certainly I have had my share through the years. I remember my mother's reaction the first time I came home from college and told her that religion on a Catholic college campus surprisingly allowed debate, something that just didn't happen in our house as far as Catholicism was concerned. She was uncomfortable with the idea that I could disagree with my priest instructors, or argue points of their Sunday sermons. But I was attracted by the advancing liberal thinking of the late 60s, and even though I remained steadfastly on the sideline, I was appalled by my Catholic and supposedly Christian college that expelled a pregnant classmate and banned another from the graduation ceremony for witnessing a friend's wedding in a non-catholic church.
Married to my high school sweetheart, raised and educated in a similar Catholic manner, we slipped easily into what we thought would be a family faith life like what we had experienced. We moved to our first home and immediately offered to teach religion to parish kids who were in public school. We were amazed that only a couple of kids showed up and our efforts to really become a part of this new church failed on all fronts. We "parish shopped" for a few years and didn't find a real faith home until 10 years later, when our first child was born. Nothing connects you to a faith community like the baptism of an infant, and this was our way in. For the next 10 years we were solidly Catholic, immersed in parish activities and inspired by a pastor who gained the respect of our family. He was the only priest our girls ever really knew and with his help and a close parish community we navigated Catholicism successfully during those turbulent growing up years.
Of course there were doubts. N challenged my faith when she questioned being confirmed in a religion that denies real roles to women, getting right to the key issue of women priests. C once turned her innocent face up to me and asked if I really believed that small piece of bread was actually someone's body. I survived the terrible knowledge that priests abused innocent children and church leaders enabled this to continue by covering it up for years. I find myself at odds with other issues too: divorce and annulment, abortion, and other sexual rights issues, including homosexuality, contraception and now same sex marriage. We still financially support our parish but no longer will give money to the Archdiocease, not trusting the top leaders of our church who seem more focused on their own political agenda than the needs of their flock. And more and more I have come to believe that the real issue here is power, the male clerical hierarchy's ability to retain absolute power rests in it's success in controlling women.
I keep turning back to the life of Christ - isn't that what we Christians are really all about? I am compelled to read more about His life, to pray and to strengthen my relationship with Him through New Testament scripture in an effort to reconcile the big disconnect between what Church leaders today would have me believe, and what I believe Christ would do.
Recently I read a comment that those of us who disagree with current Church leadership should just go away, and find a religious congregation that shares our views on many of these contentious issues. But to deny me this Church is not possible. I am a baptized Catholic, confirmed in this faith, and sustained by the Eucharist. My Catholic Church does not "belong" to the clerical hierarchy and I am Catholic in ways that cannot be changed.
Thinking about where I go from here, reminds me of the bracelet people were wearing a few years ago that asked "what would Jesus do?" Right now prayer seems to be guiding me more in the direction of what He would do, than in what they say.
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