10 September 2018

At the risk of repeating myself, this is to state that I am not and never was a religious person. There was nothing religious in my childhood home.  For a few years when I was in primary school, I went to church with my sister. Our school was a country school and going to church on a Sunday was part of the way things worked. My parents did not go. My father would wait for us in the sitting room before Sunday lunch, asking questions about the sermon, ready to ridicule every word, but we never remembered much. The sermon was the boring bit when I had trouble staying awake. At the church door on our way out, the kids all received a little magazine with stories about black babies in Africa and picture puzzles. I liked the picture puzzles, they had to be coloured in just so to reveal the solution. Also, there were these two seemingly identical drawings with ten hidden differences and for a while that was challenging.

Over the years, we all went to the instruction classes for (Lutheran) holy confirmation. Again, this was the way things worked and my mother would show up in church on the day. Mostly, it was all about the dress (black) and the shoes (heeled) and my first make-up and getting money presents. Only, my grandmother insisted I should get silverware for my future dowry. That was a huge disappointment to me as two years earlier, my sister had received enough money to buy a sophisticated reel-to-reel tape recorder/player, which I was not allowed to touch. Lately, I have started to look at the price of silver with the intention of finally selling my incomplete set of 63 or so knives and forks and spoons.
Then there was the youth club on a Friday night, where we would play table tennis and later had a disco, with secret stacks of beer and cigarettes, supervised by a trainee vicar who wanted to be cool and looked away. I remember watching the local male heartthrobs jumping up in the air to "Satisfaction" and also, my first time getting drunk. At midnight, we had to clean up and put everything back as it was for the ladies' coffee morning on Saturdays.
A few years later, I went through a very brief spell of infatuation with the Baptist church but soon lost interest when real adult life beckoned. 

Also, the children of god drifted by, all tambourines and long skirts, for a few weeks outside secondary school. A handful of Hare Krishna's at university. And then I met R's parents. Ardent catholics. I came into their lives shortly after the Polish pope had been to Ireland in 1979,  which was a massive, massive event, and every time I sat in the car of my future father in law, he played the tapes of that mass, watching me in the rear view mirror.

When after three years of unsuccessful attempts of their gentle proselytising I refused to have the first (and much loved and cherished) grandchild baptised, they went on a pilgrimage to Lough Derg which involved three days of fasting and endless hours of kneeling on concrete slabs day and night in the rain. One day, I may write about how I felt when they returned from that dreadful island in Donegal, bleeding and feeling cleansed, as my mother in law assured me.

But basically, I kept well away from all that. And yet, nothing I have since learnt about the catholic church in Ireland and elsewhere has come as a surprise. So when was the first time I had it spelt out that this church was teeming with child abuse? I tell you when, it was when Sinead O'Connor tore up that picture of the pope on US television. And let's not forget, she was/is almost universally treated like a crazy person who had said something bizarre and unforgivable. Did you think she was mad then, too?





11 comments:

Elizabeth said...

The build-up to your intense ending of this post was incredible. Such tension -- and no relief. The Catholic Church should be knocked down completely. For the life of me, I do not understand how anyone can stay within it, how people of faith can justify staying in it, how they can separate their "faith" from the atrocities committed by the very structure upon which it's built.

am said...

Sexual abuse has happened and is happening everywhere I turn, and I feel and have felt the rage that Sinead embodies in that clip. I didn't think Sinead was a crazy person. Courageously expressing rage and grief, yes. Crazy, no.

There is immense ignorance and secrecy and shame and denial that perpetuate sexual abuse. It is only in our lifetime that sexual abuse has been acknowledged for being as widespread and damaging as it has been throughout history.

Ms. Moon said...

I believed her. And I respected the hell out of her.

ellen abbott said...

I was raised Episcopalian, made to go to church til about middle school when for reasons I won't go into here my mother stopped going to church and made my dad responsible for taking us when the only reason he went is because mother made him go. that first Sunday we went, the second Sunday, we went out for a late breakfast instead. the third Sunday, we didn't even pretend and that was the end of going to church. we would still go on Christmas but that ended when I was 17 and refused to kneel for prayer. our mother marched us out of the church during the service mortified making a bigger scene out of it. I think all 'religion' is evil doing far more harm than good, essentially a system of control, especially the Catholic Church specifically that has murdered millions of people for refusing to convert, not to mention its attitude toward women but the other two Abrahamic religions as well. that the priesthood of Catholicism is rife with sexual abuse of children should come as no surprise, the result of pledging to refuse the strongest biological imperative there is. why they think abstinence makes one holier and closer to god is beyond me when their god obviously wants humans to reproduce. we have mega-churches here and shyters living the life of millionaires on the tithes of their congregations instead of using that money to help the needy like their Jesus tells them to. and the shit these priests come up with...victims should not be making accusations because they themselves are sinners...one priest/bishop has gone so far as to say he didn't know it was illegal to molest children. what the actual fuck? I didn't really pay attention at the time to the whole Sinead O'Conner thing having turned my back on religion long ago. but of course they demonized her. she's a woman, how dare she!

Linda d said...

I believe in being grateful and thankful and that is my “church”.

molly said...

I don't especially like the f-word but I love "what the actual fuck" here.

molly said...

Growing up Catholic in Ireland in the fifties and sixties, the church had us in a stranglehold. Mass every Sunday, and every morning in Lent, and confession every week was just how life was. Priests controlled everything and were treated like little tin gods. And if you were bored to death most of the time, you'd better stifle those yawns 'cause it was sacrilegious to question the church and its ministers. And then all the filthy truth came out. No wonder churches are empty except for a few pious old ladies. It was brave of Sinead to do what she did at that time and a lot of people were shocked (me included, I have to admit.) So much that is horrible was going on under our trusting noses, and they got away with it. Protected their own while ruining innocent lives. Yes, she was courageous.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for writing this, Sabine. I think religion and the invention of monotheism are the worst ideas that humans have ever concocted. It was probably pretty comforting as stories thousands of years ago, but it sure would be nice to move on from that insanity. How much blood has been shed in the name of a make believe god? I think Sinead O'Connor was incredibly brave.

Roderick Robinson said...

I am an atheist, non-proselytising I should add. Atheism is not the presence of anything, it is an absence. A refusal to take the supernatural and/or mysticism seriously, a decision based on the Occam's Razor principle

Briefly I took a course on Catholicism, even attended Mass. Why? Because I am, or was, subject to even stronger forces. A young woman I fancied was similarly interested in Catholicism; it didn't take with her either. She gave me a rosary. Can you imagine the power of that particular symbolic act? Now I filter my interest in Catholicism by reading Graham Greene. Oh, and watching (re-watching in fact) the movie Spotlight, acknowledging I am the victim of yet another powerful, if personal, force - the possibility that journalists might do good. I am inevitably a retired journalist.

Colette said...

I remember seeing that live on TV, and it was a thrill. A heroic act. She was ahead of her time. Honestly, tho - I don't see modern Catholicism as being any worse than many of the other, Protestant forms of Christianity. If Jesus ever lived, they shame him with their lies.

Joared said...

I've often thought Catholicism could resolve some of their issues if they'd eliminate that celibacy rule for their priests and allow them to wed, too. The priests must spend much time and energy combating the natural needs of human beings. Then, they could concentrate on doing good for mankind which is supposed to be their intent. I figure doing unto others as we would have others do unto us pretty well covers everything, too. For others, maybe following the Ten Commandments will cover most matters.