I spent the last seven years working for a family run Catholic publishing company. We were saving the world, and the Catholic Church from itself. We were indeed more Catholic than the Pope. We sold books, traveled around giving talks, raised money from old women under the auspices of preserving Catholic traditions. We were busy saving the miscellaneous detritus that the institution they loved had cast off over the last three or four decades.
Somewhere along the line I stopped believing.
I don’t think it was the homosexual scandals. If you’ve spent any time in the industry in the last couple of decades, then you’ve known about it for a lot longer than the media has. It's always been the deep, dark, ugliness scratching away at the veneer of piety.
I remember an acquaintance remarking about how you couldn’t go to the drinking fountain in seminary without someone reaching out to grab your ass.
That was fifteen years ago.
I think maybe it was just the slow realization that I was immersed in an institution like any other non-profit, politically motivated group with no viable product to offer that makes loud, angry noises about how they know what’s best for people, yet people don’t see the need to pay for their services.
I despise politicians, activist organizations, and other "humanitarian" groups that have the answer to all of our problems, yet can’t seem to run financially viable operations. Maybe I’m just a die-hard capitalist, but it rubs me the wrong way...
Humorous interlude now-
So I’m hanging out in the house with the baby right now. She comes ambling up and announces:
"Daddy, I popped!"
She’s at that age where announcing to the world every time you poop your pants is actually a sign of intelligence. I think to myself, how cute... popped... she meant pooped, but that’s OK. Then I look over at her...
"Holy fuck! You did pop!"
And there she stands in a stinky pile of that explosive kind of diarrhea that blows out the bottom of your pant legs and through the top of your turtle-neck. The kind that only one year olds in diapers get, and is invariably filled with raisins and frozen peas.
"Don’t move!" I scream, diving for the baby wipes, as she scampers away.
Full tackle. Poop everywhere.
Why is it that kids think its funny to started squirming and trying to run away when you finally get the diaper off and are cleaning them up? Hey! That dumb old balding bastard is finally mine to toy with... Watch this! I’ll wriggle and wipe poop all over his hands. Then you finally hog-tie them, get them cleaned up, and are about to pierce their ankles and leave them on a hill to die of exposure, and they batt their eyes and cuddle up to you...awe... heart melts, and they get to live to poop all over you another day...
Anyway, I’m done with Catholics for a while. I can’t even step into a church without getting palpitations and feeling hair follicles forcibly ejecting what few strands remain on the top of my noggin. This is a point of some minor contention in my mud hut, and will doubtless lead to many a shouting match in the future. It’s not that I don’t still hold to the fundamental tenets, it’s just that I need a break. I want to be a person in the world who just happens to ascribe to a particular set of beliefs, and not one who ascribes to those beliefs and is constantly broadcasting them to any and everyone they encounter.
We’ll see how it goes.
For now, I’m going to have another beer.
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1 comment:
I decided that my crisis was not one of faith, but one of religion. Lose the religion, keep the faith.
Not always, mind you, but many times I can give people a pass on hypocrisy. Less often, but still often enough, I can give people a pass on sanctimony. But both combined are intolerable.
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