Why, Catholic?

My latest in a lifetime of personal grievances against the Catholic institution and many of its parishioners will go unspoken this time because I am complicit in that which ails me about the church at present and fully aware how with a point of my finger three more point back at me. I am not a good Catholic; in fact, despite many years spent praying with child-like innocence and unwavering devotion to Catholic rituals in countless pews of various Catholic churches, I by the church’s own standards am not a Catholic at all. For various reasons (none of which were ever, until recently, a lack of desire), I have never been allowed to receive any of the Catholic sacraments including baptism—something for which I (oddly) still harbor a deep sense of shame and embarrassment to admit. As such, to my limited understanding, Catholic doctrine purports that I am automatically doomed to purgatory (or limbo) after death—a prospect I feared, cried about, and silently begged forgiveness for many years as an impressionable young child of faith.

Therein lies my original sin, root of my guilty conscience and general disappointment with the Catholic churches of my upbringing. Why, Catholic, hast thou forsaken me?

To be clear, despite my personal (perhaps self-pitying) grievances and in spite of the church’s atrocious history of (among other things) killing people in the name of God or the general off-putting nature of pomp and circumstance in and around Catholic idols and an autocratic Vatican, I remain convinced that Catholicism, like most other Christian religions (at least throughout our islands), has, without a doubt, been a force for good. Put another way, island life as it was for me in the outer islands of Chuuk in the ’70s and ’80s would have been far more chaotic, violent, and generally unpleasant without the sense of order brought about only through a kind of discipline and quiet reverence a majority of islanders hold for the church. In memoriam: Our resident priest, Fr. Rively, who lived on our home island of Lukunor during my childhood, was revered and lived a kind of untouchable, almost saintly status—somewhere between fear, love, and respect. I remember him fondly, if for nothing else, as an oddity or an anomaly in both demeanor and appearance (an interesting subject for a future article perhaps).

My earliest memories of what might be best described as the beginnings of an indoctrination into the Catholic church consist of being lathered (from head to toe) with coconut oil, dressed in home-sewn clothes and marched (with my cousins) to church every Sunday. I learned quickly that my best behavior in and around the church drew a different level of praise and acknowledgement from even the most stern of adults in our family. Thus, at the tender age of about 7 or 8 years old, I embarked on a deep desire and initial quest to be the best Catholic I could be. During those days I would be told and regularly reminded in no uncertain terms that attending any other church was an affront to God. I very clearly remember too being told that the actual definition of protestant (as explained to me in Mortlockese) was “to stand against God.”

Catechism classes came along and I quickly and convincingly rose through the ranks, reciting through rote (an important consideration) memory all of the requisite prayers and got deemed ready for communion even before many of the much older kids than I. Alas, the issue of my baptism (or rather lack thereof) and uncertainty about whether or not my parents would approve (they didn’t live with us at the time and phone calls or emails were not a thing) came into question. So the day of my holy communion was put on hold and I would spend the next several years watching most, if not all, of my cousins and other friends being celebrated as they were welcomed into the Catholic faith with many of them moving up to become altar servers (only for boys in those days). Meanwhile I slowly and subtly became a kind of unspoken outcast among my peers within the church that I loved and attended religiously—by definition my own personal purgatory (or limbo) here on Earth. I continued to faithfully attend our Catholic church daily in hopes perhaps of being recognized as worthy, but that day never came and at some point, I began to wander. I began to double up on church, joining our much smaller Protestant services (usually after Catholic Mass every Sunday). Truth be told, my Protestant family and their church services were far more relatable, less uptight if you will, and much more interactive. In the years thereafter I would attend various private schools with religious underpinnings, which included a year or two in a Seventh Day Adventist school, another year or two in a Pentecostal school, four years of high school at an Episcopalian-based school and my college years at a private Presbyterian-based school. Coincidentally, the most highly sought-after private school in Chuuk (and arguably in Micronesia at the time), Xavier High School, which is a Catholic Jesuit school, wouldn’t accept me either—okay, I failed the entrance exam, but that it was another Catholic stiff-arm did not escape me.

I have long given up trying to gain favor with Catholicism; in fact, a few of my closest friends who remain devout might attest that I have grown cynical and can at times be insensitive (my late grandmother and others would likely say, sacrilegious) in my remarks about the church—forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

Ultimately, I have come to accept that God has a plan for me (whatever that may be) and, in spite of my personal misgivings with the religion, that the Catholic faith (not necessarily the religion, much less every church) is an essential force for good in what it teaches—a force of spiritual and moral values that the faith carries with it.

I cannot claim to be a Catholic, but I hold faithfully to the notion of “Caritas in Veritate”—loosely translated, “Love or Charity for Truth”—inscribed by Pope Benedict the XVI as being a Catholic promise to “assist the world to come out of confusion” with and through “Caritas,” more literally translated as “the spiritual aspect of love.” For emphasis caritas means “love,” not simple charity, which has largely lost its original meaning and is now understood mainly as financial or material generosity to people in need.

Archbishop Abuja-John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan makes the point that the “church is made up of saints and sinners” to the point perhaps that the church should be a refuge for sinners and that the shame associated with sin is in fact “a grace” preparing us for God’s forgiveness.

As someone unable to receive the “Sacrament of Penance, Reconciliation or Confession” on a train bound for nowhere, perhaps the best that I can hope for is to die in my sleep on a gamble that God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.