I would never have the audacity to claim that I have a special understanding of the spiritual aspects of our humanity. I grapple with understanding what is expected of us in terms of religion as much as I struggle to understand the way things work in the world of science. Mine is an ongoing journey of exploration into the meaning of life that I have been studying for most of my life. 

I was baptized as a Catholic at All Saints Catholic Church when I was an infant. Ironically the priest who performed the sacrament would one day become a person whose thoughts on religion would greatly influence me. it would be many years before I met him again and during that time I completed twelve years of Catholic schooling which included daily religion classes where I learned the fundamental beliefs of the Catholic faith. I was a rather devout child who attended mass on most mornings and read every book about saints that was in the library. I suppose I got my ardor for religion from my mother who read the Bible daily and sacrificed financially to send me to Catholic school even after my father died and her income was significantly reduced. 

I decided not to attend a Catholic university even though many were offering me full scholarships. I felt quite limited in my knowledge of the world outside of my church. I understood that if I were to be able to survive in a very diverse world it would be important for me to get to know and understand those whose upbringing had been very different from mine. To this day I believe that it was a wise move on my part because in the years to follow when I would encounter coworkers and students who were from many different cultures. My success as an educator came because I was open to accepting them just as they were, not as I thought they should be. 

It is not surprising that I ended up marrying a young man who had also attended Catholic schools. We married in a Catholic ceremony presided over by the same priest who had baptized me many years before. He was a friend and counselor to my mother-in-law who worked for him. Through her and through him my religious education would continue. 

Whenever my husband and I visited his parents on a Sunday afternoon a kind of routine evolved. We would have a nice Sunday dinner and then the men would wonder off to watch whatever sport was being featured on the television. While they were enjoying man time my mother-in-law and I would partake of a pot of hot tea and some of the most remarkable conversations I have ever experienced. 

She had been born an Episcopalian but when she married my father-in-law, who was a Catholic, she wanted to learn more about his faith. She found a priest who instructed her in the basic ideas of the Catholic religion and before long she had decided to convert to that faith but her education did not end there. She was a life- long learner who read tracts from St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, popes, philosophers and ministers of other Christian faiths. Learning about Catholicism and Christianity was her passion and she truly enjoyed explaining to me what she had learned. 

One of the things that worried her was the rise of a kind of Christianity that seemed to pervert the message of Jesus. She pointed out that in the course of history there had been many religious wars predicated on false ideas that hardly resembled the message of Jesus. She mentioned a preacher who had been popular when she was a young girl whose homilies were hateful screeds that demeaned whole groups of people. Even as a little girl she realized that Jesus had spent all of his time including everyone, even those who were spurned by the society of his time. 

I am still very Catholic. I was once the Director of Religious Education at a Catholic Church. I mostly recently was a Eucharistic Minister until Covid hit and I had to attend church remotely. My long search for the answers of what is right and what is wrong have led me to believe that all too often there are people picking and choosing and interpreting verses in the Bible that fit their personal beliefs. They ignore passages that say that women should keep their heads covered and not wear pants like men but seem to stretch their interpretation of the words that they find to hint that members of the LGBTQ community are somehow decadent sinners. The truth is that nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus take the time to warn us about gays or lesbians or trans people. In fact, he shows us again and again that he was willing to break the religious rules of the time to demonstrate that all people were worthy of his love.

Let’s look closely at what Jesus did. He rescued and healed people on the Sabbath. He befriended Mary Magdalene who was a societal outcast. He invited a tax collector to have dinner with him even as doing so made tongues wag. He baptized a Eunuch who had been ostracized. He made a Samaritan the hero of one of his stories even though such people were thought to be avoided at the time. He cared for people with leprosy. He told us that there was a new commandment which simply put asked us to love our neighbors as we would love ourselves. He did not put limits on who we should love. Nobody was left out of his command. He died on a cross as a common criminal in his time, which was a purposeful way to show us that our prejudices should not dictate who gets our love. 

Why is it so hard for humans to understand how we have been directed to behave toward one another? Why are we so judgmental of one another. Why are we demonizing innocent people? Why can’t we see that hate should have no place inside a church? Our new Catholic Pope is reminding us daily of our responsibility to care for our fellow humans. Why are so many not listening? These are questions that I wish I might ask that wonderful priest who baptized me and my loving and spiritually brilliant mother-in-law, but I think I already know what they would say.