Lost and Found

There are many ways to describe it: recovering Catholic, lapsed Catholic, ethnic Catholic. I can relate to all of these labels. It wasn’t always that way. I was raised in a faithful, church-going family. And not just Easter and Christmas. Every Sunday and every holy day of obligation, including my birthday on All Saints’ Day, there we were sitting in mass. I went to CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine or “catechism”) through 8th grade, was baptized, made Penance, and had my First Holy Communion and Confirmation, as scheduled. I was even married in a Catholic church. But, at the end of the day, I don’t really believe in much of the Church’s teachings.

I can’t disagree with the basics: You shall not kill; You shall not steal; You shall not commit adultery; Honor your father and mother. Who can argue with these? It’s when you get down to the politics of the Church and the political development of its doctrine that we have problems. I can not accept a purportedly infallible doctrine that promotes gender bias, birth control policies that drive families into poverty and that, at its most egregious, justifies murder, war and abuse of children. That’s not God, in my opinion. Any god.

So these days, the Church — or church, in general — is not really a part of my life. I’ve stopped going on Sundays and even Christmas and Easter. It seemed insincere to only go on holidays — I don’t believe on December 25 that I was born a sinner any more than I do on December 26. So now I just don’t go. Elliott and I also made the decision to not baptize our daughter. This caused a bit of an uproar in my extended family, as I knew it would. It was not a decision made lightly. And I’d be lying if I said I never questioned it [Hold your phone calls. This is no longer — well, never was — up for negotiation] because there are days when I kind of miss it or at least what it was when I was very young. I don’t miss “the Church,” or the doctrine, or the weighty obligations and ultimatums, but the simplicity of going someplace with ritual and – dare I say it – mindlessness.

One reason I’m still somewhat attached to Catholicism is that I’ve found since I left my hometown, which was probably no less than 95% Catholic, that there is a certain camaraderie between Catholics, devout and recovering, alike. I learned when I moved away from the numerous Catholic enclaves that inhabit NY, that Catholics are not as ubiquitous in the rest of the country as I had always believed. And even more surprising, they are not particularly liked. Since then, I have found that meeting a Catholic, or someone simply raised Catholic but no longer practicing, is like coming home. There’s an instant connection: an understanding about the kind of upbringing we each had, a shared habit of self-deprecation, a shared religious vocabulary that causes other Christians to furrow their brows in confusion, and often a shared bitterness toward it all. There’s comfort in familiarity.

Then there’s another reason, of which I was reminded this week. Although I have distanced myself from Catholicism, there are little habits that I have never fully abandoned, probably much to the surprise of even those who know me best. Most notably, the saints. I mean, come on, it’s like having your own pack of superheroes ready to jump in and help with just a simple request! Having trouble in your marriage? Pray to St. Monica! Pregnant and worried about the delivery? Pray to St. Silvia! Think you might be attacked by pirates? Pray to St. Albinus of Angers! There’s a patron saint of everything. What’s not to love?!

Still to this day, with much encouragement from my father, I pray to the saints. I long ago gave up on relationships with any particular god and Jesus, but the saints? They have my back. I never travel by airplane without a simple request to St. Christopher for safe arrival. And for weeks before I took the bar exam, I asked St. Catherine (patron saint of students), St. Thomas More (patron saint of lawyers) and, just in case, St. Jude (patron saint of lost causes) for their help. I often rationalize this as simply being superstitious. But the truth is, it’s more than superstition. I rely on the saints when I need help. I never know if they’ll come through for a lapsed Catholic like me, but it can’t hurt to try.

Which is why I called on St. Anthony this week. He’s the patron saint of lost items. And, seriously, the guy’s amazing. I can’t tell you how many keys, shoes and other random items he has uncovered for me over the years. But we’ve been out of touch for a while. I wasn’t sure how he was feeling about the whole not-baptizing-my-baby-thing, and I also don’t like to abuse the saints’ good-will. So earlier this week when I lost Lilly’s winter coat in the pre-holiday frenzy at T.J. Maxx, at first I decided to search for it the earthly way. After my tenth lap and second visit to the store and after several check-ins with the lost and found, I turned to my old friend and made a simple and humble request, then took another lap. No dice. Catholicism has never been about instant gratification, so I decided to go home and just hope it turned up in the nightly clean-up. The next morning I called the lost and found again. Nothing. They had my number if they found it. I’d done all I could do. 

The frustration of losing the coat lingered in the back of my mind all the next day. Each time the phone rang I hoped for “T.J. Maxx” on the caller ID, and never saw it. I resigned myself to buying a new coat. Later that day, I had to make a quick trip to Target in the evening. It’s right next to T.J. Maxx. The frustration resurfaced again for a minute as I thought about that fact. Then just as I was heading out the door, coatless baby on my hip, I noticed the answering machine blinking. But I hadn’t even gone out? Must have been while I was in the shower. It was T.J. Maxx, they found Lilly’s coat. Come and get it. St. Anthony did it again. And he even timed it to save me an extra trip to that shopping center.

So now I’m left with a dilemma. I can’t deny the fact that I cling to some aspects of Catholicism. And I don’t want my daughter to miss out on the instant community I have found with other Catholics, nor do I want to deprive her of this “in” with some pretty helpful folks.  But is it worth a lifetime of guilt and shame? Of doctrine that defies some of my most basic beliefs about what is good and just? And is baptizing your child Catholic just for easy small talk and access to her own private pack of superheroes like converting to Judaism for the jokes? These are things I’ll have to think about. In the meantime, who is the patron saint of I-don’t-want-to-hear-I-told-you-sos?

The Lost and Found by MushBrain, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mushbrain.net.