LIKE MOST PARENTS, I try to do the best for my children. I try to teach them that things like tolerance, understanding and compassion are the cornerstones of a good life, but when the opposite is being rained down at them from the pulpit, I have to wonder why I bring them to mass when the message is often so negative.
A couple of weeks ago, at a month’s mind mass for a loved one in a different parish, I sat agog in the pew as the priest devoted the bulk of the time to ram the idea that only a marriage between a man and a woman is acceptable and anything other than that was a one-way ticket to hell, down our throats.
I felt as though I’d stepped back into a different century, where ideas of tolerance and acceptance were a foreign concept and instead replaced by fire, brimstone and iron-clad Catholic ideals from the 1930s.
This priest began by telling us all to remember how unworthy we were, then declared that God hates cohabitation, the term partners, and loves marriage, stating that those in what he called ‘messy situations’ needed to clean up their act and get married. He went on and on in this vein at every opportunity, finally telling the congregation that we would all face God one day and that those cohabiting should be trembling.
My jaw was on the floor, mainly from the hypocrisy of the message from a man who has never been married. Nor will he ever be, unless he leaves the cloth. It smacked of someone who has not lived in the real world or worn the shoes of those in a relationship a day in his life. It all felt like the antithesis of a welcoming faith, that frankly is in need of keeping the few bums present on their seats.
Not all priests preach with such active intolerance or judgment, of course. They’re people at the end of the day and their delivery and approach to mass can vary from person to person. Our parish priest, for example, is a breath of fresh air and would make you want to return to the faith. While I’m quite sure he holds marriage as a sacred thing, he would never use his time on the altar to tell those who are not married or those who are in same-sex marriages that they are going to hell.
He preaches his beliefs but doesn’t make those sitting and listening feel small, scared or worthless. Yet as positive as he is, there is no getting away from the general messages about guilt, sin and being unworthy that still permeate most of the readings and prayers every Sunday.
Now that I’m a parent, it’s as if I’m seeing these things with new eyes, and I’d be lying if I said I’m not conflicted about bringing my two children to mass to be told these things. Like many Irish people, I was raised a Catholic. I’ve been baptised. I made my communion. I made my confirmation. I got married in a Catholic Church and was brought to mass as a child but I drifted away in my teens to be more of a sporadic attendee.
Up until recently, I’d be considered one of those so-called ‘awful’, lapsed Catholics who goes to mass at Christmas and doesn’t know when to kneel or stand. I didn’t bring my children to mass on a regular basis either until the C-word started to appear on the horizon.
I don’t send my children to a religious school, but, like many kids, my eldest wanted to make his communion this year and this is when things got complicated. Part of me was delighted. It’s hard to turn your back on something that’s so ingrained into your life, even after an absence and when he expressed his interest, I was happy to help make it happen. However, I made it clear that it wasn’t just a day out and a fancy suit. It meant making a commitment and going to mass.
As I prepared him for his first confession, the idea that at seven he had committed transgressions bad enough to be considered sins, which he needed to confess and atone for, didn’t sit quite right with me. Now I’m starting to wonder if doubling down on the whole thing is worse than simply going through the motions for the day out.
I have faith in God or something bigger than simply just us, but I have some big issues with the Catholic Church as an entity. Let’s not forget the catalogue of failings within this religious institution over decades now, all documented with the most horrific clarity through our airwaves and newspapers over the past few years. The child sexual abuse scandals, the horror of the mother and baby homes and the Magdalene laundries, not to mention my opposite stance to many of its views on important social issues, have made me question why I still go.
I’m still trying to answer that question as honestly as I can.
I think underneath much of the church’s man-made institutions, there’s something good there and some really good people at the heart of it. But often, it seems like it’s hard to debate the issues from within or try and effect change when you’re met with defensiveness and dismissal.
I’m not blind to the hypocrisy of my own actions, but at least I’m owning up to it and willing to talk about it. If the church woke up and did the same, maybe we’d get somewhere.
Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and journalist.
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