My Struggle with Catholicism

My sister and I were raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father. We went to church every Sunday, prayed the rosary, attended Catholic school. My atheist father didn't attend Mass or pray with us, but he seemed to believe that it was good and wholesome for kids to believe in God. I somehow got the impression that religion was for "women and children."

My mother had my sister and I pray daily for our father's conversion. This gave me the impression that one of my parents had to be wrong. They couldn't both be right. As a child, I couldn't know how strong an effect this conflict would have on me. I couldn't reconcile my parents' two belief systems.

Despite having a very strong belief as a young child, I began to question more and more things about the church as I grew older. How could light be created on the first day, but the Sun not created until the fourth? Was the Genesis story perhaps not to be taken literally? My mother thought this was rank heresy. Of course the Bible had to be taken literally. She saw no conflict whatsoever between scientific teachings, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. I began to reject my mother's belief system. My father was much more rational. We loved to debate issues together over the dinner table. My mother, on the other hand, closed her eyes to any kind of rational argument, seeing it as an attack on her faith. She just believed, whether it made sense or not.

I lost respect for that kind of blind faith. I could not believe something just because I was told to. So what could I believe? I began to struggle with issues of conscience. Of course I believed abortion was a sin. How could you draw a line between a born child and a nine-month fetus? Or a nine-month fetus and a six-month fetus? There must be a line somewhere, perhaps around the time it develops brain cells. But I didn't know where that line was, and I had to err on the side of the pro-life. On the other hand, I did not believe abortion should be illegal. That led to scared children having unsafe and potentially deadly abortions. The best way to prevent abortions would be to provide more and better information and access to contraceptives.

But the Church was against contraceptives, for the same reason that they were against same sex liasions. I took great issue with this. The official stance of the Church was that the act of homosexuality was a sin, the inclination was not. But it seemed to me that there was a great deal of judgement against those with the inclination. And that there was a great deal more judgement against those who practiced homosexuality, than there was against those who practiced contraception. If "spilling the seed" was a sin, why was it considered a much greater, more stigmatized sin when homosexuals "spilled" than when heterosexuals "spilled?"

At 18, around the time I left home, I also left the Church. I was unable to believe in these teachings, which seemed so obviously unjust. I tried a few other denominations, but was unable to feel at home in a church which didn't have the rituals and ceremony of my own. As I got further and further removed from my faith, I began to doubt whether God even existed. I took World Religions in university, hoping to find a faith to believe in. But nothing seemed plausible to me.

There were times when I began to pray again. When my aunt was dying of liver cancer, when my sister got married, when I went through a particularly difficult breakup. But always, I would eventually leave the Church, unable to reconcile my social concience with its teachings.

I am now engaged to be married. I want a church wedding, for a greater reason than for a pretty location. I miss my faith. I have never been able to completely separate myself from the Catholicism that I was raised in. I have tried for more than ten years to get rid of my Catholic conditioning, if that is all it is. Perhaps God is calling me back. Perhaps there is no God, and it is only my deeply-ingrained Catholic upbringing that makes me miss my faith so much. But I have operated on the premise of no God for over ten years, hoping to overcome that internalized Catholicism, if that's all it is. To no avail. So perhaps it's time to work from the opposite premise. That there is a God, that He is calling me back. If there is a God, maybe by going to church and praying again, I will be able to feel closer to Him. Perhaps I will be given the grace to understand that He exists. Perhaps not. But I have given my faithless side ten years to prove its position. Perhaps it's time to give the faithful side of me the same opportunity.