Round Trip to Rome

Like many other people, my decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church was not made in haste. I did not leave because I was angry, hurt, or disagreed with the Church on any major issue. It is true that I once was attracted by change– and I am particularly aware of having spent some time as a young woman in a high-gear, full-throttle exploration of life. This meant I often changed college majors, social circles, and political parties. A survey of my undergraduate college years reflect that I was all of the following: 1) a freshman philosophy major who led a campus sit-in to protest capital punishment; 2) a sophomore criminology major who helped organize a chapter of College Republicans, and 3) a history major whose graduate studies were interrupted by marriage and the birth of a child. Although I was not raised in a Catholic home by Catholic parents, the unifying thread of my frenetic young adulthood was Roman Catholicism -- and how I sought to remain faithful in spite of an often immature approach to temporal concerns.

I begin with this frank personal disclaimer for two reasons. First, it seems necessary to frame my decision to leave Roman Catholicism as something other than the impulsivity that might have generally characterized my youth. Secondly, I want to make the important observation that amid all the turbulence of my adolescence and young adulthood, the Church was my only reliable anchor. It was the immovable constant of my life– simultaneously compass and comfort; solace and sustenance. It had the sole distinction of being what I did not doubt, renounce, or fail to defend.

I should also begin by confessing my sin of envy directed at those who qualify to call themselves “cradle Catholics.” This is because I was mostly un-churched as a child, born to what I have finally decided to describe as non-practicing “Presby-Metho-Theists.” I grew up in a house where there was always prayer before meals and at bedtime. Interestingly, this is all I really knew of God - He was a remote being who made sure I was fed regularly and did not die in my sleep. My father, whom I never saw in a church building except the day my older brother married, identified himself as Presbyterian. (Sadly, I never saw him really practice anything other than alcoholism until his self-induced death when I was fourteen years old.) On the other hand, my mother claimed to be a Methodist, and I recall having been enrolled in at least one summer session of Vacation Bible School in that tradition. I received no regular or ongoing exposure to Christianity; that is, until I was invited to attend Mass with a family that lived in my neighborhood. I was about ten years old, but I recall scenes from that Sunday with all the certainty of yesterday’s events.

Looking back today with the perspective of an adult, I know that at least part of the initial attraction on that Sunday came from the realization that there were families who actually attended church together (or did anything together, for that matter). For perhaps the first time in my brief life, I saw a broader community of people who supported each other in some significant way. Yet, the simple connectivity of that hour and the energy of the fellowship that resonated deep within me. There was something living among those gathered in that church, and it mysteriously filled a void deep inside. I became aware of an emptiness that I scarcely knew was there before and certainly could not name. I knew I had been in the midst of something good and right and true.

I still remember the visual images of that morning, especially a large crucifix that prominently displayed a bleeding and suffering Jesus, something I found strangely comforting and intriguing. I could not stop looking at Him! There was a beautiful marble statue of a mother holding an infant, although I had yet to connect that the infant and the suffering Jesus-on-the-cross bore any relation to one another. (Little did I know this marked the beginning of my life-long love of religious art.) I recall watching as my friend and her family went forward, with a reverence I had never seen, to receive what seemed to be a treasured gift.

Although I obediently remained kneeling in the pew throughout what was obviously the high point of the morning, I went home awash with a mysterious joy that defied description. I was incapable of knowing that it was the beginning of the greatest journey of my life.