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CATECHISM CATACLYSM

© Rev. Marie Jones

I'm a fallen semi-Roman Catholic. I grew up with very open-minded parents, who in turn had very strict Roman Catholic parents (typical for most East Coast Italian families). So, we only went to Church on the important holidays, or when the grandparents were around, which basically added up to about five or six times a year. And we got baptized, confirmed and went to Sunday School - just long enough to keep "them" happy. Because it wasn't keeping us happy. Especially me.

I had questions. Why did the Bible contain so much conflicting and contradicting information? Why were women treated like crap in the Roman Catholic Church? Why were people allowed to kill in the name of God when God distinctly said, "Thou Shall Not Kill?" My catechism teachers hated me. I made them squirm. I made them nervous. I made them work. Then I committed the biggest sin of all. I made them answer my questions. And they answered them poorly, I might add.

Thankfully, my mom and dad made sure that my final spiritual choices were left up to me, and only me. And to this day I've studied, dabbled and settled upon a hodge-podge of all the major and minor religions (Roman Catholicism included) to create what I call "My Way."

One of the greatest dangers we face, as individuals and as a society, is religious restriction. Forced belief. Imposed spirituality. We live in a world where more people are killed for religious reasons than any other reason, where more people die "in the name of God" than for any other cause. Not my God.

What happens when people begin to worship religion? What happens when the doctrine and the dogma become the God, and the real reason for the season gets lost in the quagmire of rules and regulations, rights and wrongs?

We suffer the consequences. Just look at the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the current unrest in the Middle East. For a bunch of people who claim to be reverent and holy, we sure to engage in a lot of bloody murder. Christians killing Jews. Muslims torturing Christians. Everybody picking on the pagans. Buddhists exiled from their holy lands. Catholics blowing up Protestant villages. There seems to be no end to the hatred, the ignorance, and the intolerance between "holy peoples."

To convince a religious addict, or fanatic, that no one religion is the Truth, that ALL religions are a different approach to the Truth, is like trying to convince a pig it's a ferret. To try and convince a zealot that killing in the name of God is an oxymoron is like trying to convince a five-year-old that candy tastes like broccoli. (I recently tried this with a five-year-old nephew and ended up with an earful of broccoli.)