Catechism

“Teach your children well”, the old adage says. But what should one actually teach the children? From the second a baby is born, the clock begins to tick. As a child’s individual personality begins to develop, the methods and avenues through which education can be effectively conveyed begin to customize. Scientific studies now show that particular concepts, such as language development, are much more easily learned at a young age. Thus, adults have more difficulty learning a new language than a child. But let’s face it – there is only so much that can effectively be taught to a child at once. And with the clock ticking, what is most important? Math? Language/s? Ethics? Morality? Problem-solving? History? Ethics? Religion? And who is to say, definitively?

 

In my own upbringing, I remember all too well growing up in a Catholic-light household. When I say, “Catholic-light,” I refer to the fact that we were a face-value Catholic family. My parents were married in a Catholic church. My sisters and I were all baptized Catholic. And by default, that was how we were going to be brought up. Yet, despite this, my parents were not particularly part of the church. My father, I would honestly have to describe as a Catholic-of-convenience. By that, I mean that I think that he feared God and did acknowledge that right and wrong existed. Yet, I think in his mind, he was able to convince himself that some wrong-doings weren’t really all THAT wrong. And if he didn’t go to church a lot (or at all), or strayed from doing-the-right-thing, there had to be some sort of justification for it – even if that justification involved just feeling kinda bad about it on the inside. As for my mom, I have never met a more devoutly religious person. And by “Devoutly Religious”, I mean that she was a devout member of the Church of Atheism. “Religion is the opiate of the stupid masses!” I have heard her say. Yet, despite her own views, my mother was very adamant about me being involved in the Catholic Church as early as possible. And looking back, I think it was simply so she could get the kid out of the house, and have a bit of peace and quiet.

 

I don’t remember how old I was when I began to go to Catechism. I know that I had trouble pronouncing it, and I didn’t know what it was about or why I had to go. And looking back, that really bothers me. In the papers, we read about freaky religious communities where we find underage marriages or polygamy or very alternate lifestyles and we gasp. “Oh, the poor people who have been brainwashed by the freaky teachings of these religions!” we think or speak. But… how is that any worse than taking a child who has absolutely no views or opinion about religion and throwing them into a structure of rules and regulations to train him or her into believing a certain way? Is that any better or worse?

 

Before I knew what was going on, I was being taught to pray in a certain way to a certain form of deity, and was getting the fear of sin and hell and damnation drilled into my brain. Before I even knew what evil was, I was taught to look down upon it, and to judge it – whether or not I knew anything whatsoever about it. Is that right? I mean, who in the world was I, as a young child, to determine if something was evil or not? Then, we have that thing known as Catholic-Guilt. Descriptions and images of the crucifixion haunted me in my sleep. Yes, it is history. Yes, it is part of the culture. But frankly, so were many, many horrible events. And to expose a child to the cruel and harsh facts of life so early is just… well… a form of child abuse as far as I am concerned.

 

As an altar boy, I went through the motions of the Mass. I didn’t yet understand what it all meant or why we did what we did. But in my mind, it simply Had To Be Done. There was no choice, and no option. Eventually, my own stubbornness let the way to freedom. I began to question things. It wasn’t necessarily that I doubted things, but I wanted to know more than the black and white of what I was taught. I wanted to know WHY something was black and WHY something was white. The Catechism teachers didn’t like that. I think they viewed me as some sort of smart-assed kid who wanted to cause a problem. The volunteer Catechism teachers seemed to be more tolerant of such questions. But those closer to the church (such as the nuns who were teachers), had far less patience.

 

Eventually, it was time for First Communion. We were taught to be excited about the idea of confessing our sins, because we would be cleansed of our wrongdoings. “Um… cleansed?” I thought to myself. In preparation for what would be our first confession, we practiced them in Catechism with our teacher. I find such a thing absolutely ironic, looking back, since confession is SUPPOSED to be one of the most confidential things in the world – between the confessor and a Priest only. But no, we had to practice with the teacher. When it was my turn, I confessed in front of the class to my teacher the one thing that I could think of that I had done. I had back-talked to my parents. As such, I was not honoring my mother and father, and thus had sinned. When I made my confession, my teacher looked down at me with a frown. “Is that all?” she asked me. “Um… yah” I said with tears welling up in my eyes, feeling the incredible pressure of the teacher’s stare and the entire class looking at me, and beginning to giggle. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You must have more to confess than just that. You’d better think about it before Sunday and come up with some more things.”

 

Night after night, I thought about it and thought about it. Looking back, the fact is simple. I was a scared, timid and introverted kid. I didn’t have anything to confess because, frankly, I was a good kid why just didn’t do bad things. I didn’t act out in violence. I didn’t steal. I just wasn’t a bad kid. But, but, but, the teacher told me that I had to come up with something else. So I did. I decided to tell the Priest that I stole something – a pencil or an eraser or something. And to make up for the false confession, I also decided to add on to the tail end of my confession that I had told a lie – and that part was true. So for the 3 sins that I confessed, I was given 1 Our Father, and 2 Hail Mary’s.

 

So… all that angst… all those sleepless nights… the humiliation in front of the class… all to be told to recite three prayers and thus be rinsed clean?

 

At some point in the next year or so, I questioned more and more, and my teachers became more and more frustrated with me, eventually refusing to acknowledge my hand up in the air. Since clearly I was invisible to them, perhaps they wouldn’t notice if I didn’t show up. And thus, I began to skip Catechism here and there, only to eventually never return.

 

Leaving the Catholic Church was not a particularly painful experience for me. To me, I think I always felt like a square peg being slowly forced into a round hole. And in this respect, I was not alone. Yet, unfortunately, many of my classmates found themselves snugly thrust into the round holes, there to stay without question and without their own thoughts or ideas about religion, ethics, lifestyle, or whatever.

 

To me, religion should be a matter of personal choice and personal belief. Wanna be a Catholic? Hey, be Catholic. Wanna be a Jew? Heck, be a Jew. An it harm none, do as ye will, I believe. But if you are going to subscribe to a particular religion or religious belief, I can only hope that it is because it really is what YOU believe, not what you think you believe, or what you were taught to believe.

 

When it comes to early education, I think it is best to teach those things that we at least know to be real. The French word for “Cat” is “Chat”. That we know. World War II ended in 1945. That we know. 2 + 2 = 4. That we know. But when it comes to the things that are less tangible and more about personality and the philosophical, perhaps we should wait until the kids are no longer kids. Teaching the kids skills to become successful adults is an admirable endeavor. Chiseling away at their brains and sculpting them into models of what we think they should be – that is riding the line of child abuse.