Hi guys! Hope you are all doing well. If you have checked out my Youtube page, I have mentioned that I was going to explain the meaning of the theme of my BFA theme, which will be my religious experiences.
Short Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend, these opinions are mine and are based on personal experiences. I also still identify as Catholic, still go to church and still believe. I am not anti-Catholic or anti-church as much as I believe reforms are necessary.
Ok, with that being said, this is my story:
When I was little, I got all the normal sacraments, went to religious ed every week and church every Sunday. However, I went to a small church because it was close by and as a result, we had less than qualified religious ed teachers. My first teacher was a teenager with a face full of piercings who only read from the textbook without explaining anything. She left in the middle of the year due to tongue piercing infection.
My next teacher was a baseball coach who just talked about sports with us, so I didn't learn anything with him. Then I had an amazing teacher named Mrs. Judson. She actually taught us and a the end of the year, she sewed a stuffed teddy bear for everyone in the class. I didn't want the year to end when I had her. But sadly, it did, and the next year I was forced to take a class with a man who spoke of nothing but video games and how they were all leading us to sin. Occasionally we would watch a movie in the class on religion and religious education, but those were few and far between.
My mother finally got fed up with this long line of ineffective teachers and told our parish that we were going to relocate to another church. The lady that ran the religious ed program said that that was fine, but we would never be allowed back into their program again. She even said that in front of ME and MY LITTLE BROTHER. Because of this, I always felt like I was "kicked out" of this first church and that I was "unwelcome there" and I still feel that when I occasionally go there to this day.
From there, we went to our second parish, which was a larger community in the most beautiful church you could ever imagine. We got involved in the church's religious ed summer camp which took the place of a year of religious education. After being in the program for two amazing years, I was able to become a camp counselor and was assigned to a class of kindergarteners.
It was by far, the most rewarding experience of my life. I found that I loved teaching and working with kids and it is because of this experience that I decided to be an art teacher. As I worked in the camp, I also felt my faith being restored. I felt closer to God and I just felt WHOLE. I loved my kids and I stayed with them as they moved up to first, second and third grade before being placed with another set of first graders my final year. During this time, I made so many friends, I matured, and I also crushed on the RIGHT type of guy for the first time. As I worked my way up the ladder, I was given more responsibilities and, after telling the woman in charge of my desire to be a teacher, she made me a co-teacher for a first grade class.
Honestly, I never was a super religious person and no one in my family was either. But for the first time, I WANTED to go to church. It was a place to see my kids and connect with people in the community. I felt like a part of something bigger and I knew that there were people I could always turn to if I needed help. Doing this camp was the ONE thing I looked forward to every summer, even more than vacations!
After my graduation from high school, I wasn't worried about quitting the camp. Many teens came back from college to volunteer there over the summer and I wasn't going to be the exception. The woman in charge even offered me a position as a full time teacher for one of the younger grades! Everything looked like it was going to be fine but sadly, camp never happened that year.
While I was away at school, we had a new priest come in from the city. He immediately got rid of the religious ed program and summer camp, saying that it wasn't a recognized or acceptable way of teaching in the eyes of the church. We showed him letters of support from nuns who loved the program, but he ignored us. He then got rid of the altar servers, saying that they were disrupting him and the ones that weren't "fired" quit. I couldn't believe that altar servers - just CHILDREN were being fired from their roles at mass. Next, the priest stated being difficult with our choir and musicians - locking up the instruments so they couldn't practice and treating them like criminals who wanted to steal the instruments. They didn't last long either. The musicians quit first, followed by the singers and finally, the children's choir was disbanded.
After that, he seemed to take his anger out on the other priests in the church. Our priest from Africa, (amazing man, couldn't say enough about him) was given an inferior role in the church, rarely saying mass and performing tasks like taking out the trash. You could see the sadness in his eyes every time you went to church and he did speak to some of us about it. Eventually, he too left us and was reassigned to another church hours away.
The other priest there was also highly respected and had worked at our parish for many years. Somehow, a spot on his record came up after decades of silence. He apparently had a relationship with an underage boy that was made known when it had happened and had been swept under the rug. He was removed from the church and we don't know what happened to him.
Then the new priest, with all others gone, started firing everyone. Secretaries that worked in the church offices, maintenance workers, even an old gardener who had worked there for years. All were fired. He even fired the two women who coordinated the entire religious ed program and they were escorted out by police. As if two highly respected old women would do anything violent to harm a priest! He then replaced all the staff with new people - hiring organists who couldn't play, teachers with no certification or experience, and replacing the altar servers with the children of his supporters.
Suddenly, my church had turned into a battle ground where everyone was taking sides. People were turning against one another and the people who sat next to us in church, though one friends, shunned us for our support of the religious ed women. Almost overnight the priest had also gained a powerful ally in the mayor of the city. The mayor now frequented the church, spoke at mass, provided funding, and even was responsible for the police escort.
In this incredibly hostile environment, people stopped taking their children to church. One by one I saw my kids leave me until there were none left at all. We, the opposing team, created a facebook page and an email account, emailing everyone we could possibly find from the parish. We planned meetings and I was shocked when my normally shy mother agreed to go with me. When I walked into that first meeting after a month or two of an empty church, I felt like I was home again. I saw some of my kids, I saw so many parents I recognized, the musicians, the chior, the ushers - everyone was there. We spoke of what we knew - separating rumors from truth - and tried to find a way to bring the parish back together. We wrote so many letters to anyone who would listen. We called the archdiocese of NY and when they told us all to stop calling, we started emailing them and sending letters. We sent letters to anyone with power or influence in the church that we could think of and one girl even sent a long message to the Pope imploring him for help. Still, we heard nothing.
Finally, we had to act. There was a chance the church would be closing and combining with another nearby parish because our funding was so low (no one was going to church). We could not let the church we called home for so many years get destroyed. In one last - ditch effort, we made our final stand. We all attended church one Sunday morning and everyone was told to wear blue in honor of our most immaculate mother Mary. All of the counselors and teachers wore their camp staff shirts with a picture of the church on the back that said "Celebrating 100 years". We emailed people who had long ago given up hope and had moved on to other churches and begged them to come.
When I arrived at the church that day, I couldn't believe my eyes. In front of me was a massive sea of blue. All of my friends and kids and the community I had grown so close to had come back. I felt powerful again and I felt that I BELONGED. After weeks of counting only 20 people at mass, that day we counted 200+ and more people were expected to show up after mass to join us. After weeks of no one singing and no joy in the parish, we sang to our hearts content. After mass, we went outside to a place where we were legally able to peacefully demonstrate. We held signs that said OLMC Pray For Us and we all did a decade of the rosary. Afterwards, we sang. We sang for an hour or so and it was amazing. My kids came back to say high to me and they all sang with us as well. As the mass emptied out, the priest's supporters became very angry. One man in particular yelled at us as we were saying our hail mary's and cursed at us in front of all the kids. Cops were called, but they just watched on since we were doing nothing illegal. We invited news people to tell our story and broadcast the even and we tried so hard to get the event out there - not for the publicity but because we thought that it might get the archbishop to LISTEN to us.
Instead, nothing happened.
Everyone found different churches,the choir leader moved thousands of miles away, and it was like it never happened. Everytime I go to church now, I am constantly reminded of what we used to have. I remember how it was in the first pew from the right that I learned one of my kids was partially deaf and it was in the pew behind him that I comforted his classmate when her mother left her for the first time. It was six rows back in the middle row that I sat next to some of my favorite kids during the end of camp closing mass and it was after mass that we all had a big group hug. I remember the last year of camp when I was in the center left row, disappointed that I didn't get placed with my kids again until I found out that I was the counselor to many of their younger siblings. It was in the back of the church during a class on stained glass biblical stories that I stayed in the back with one of my campers when he was feeling sick and was in the third row from the back when I watched him and his classmates receive their first Communion. I remember the sleepless nights I spent making pictures of all my kids' favorite animals and I remember the year I got a drawing back in return from one of my campers.
In the now-closed religious ed building opposite the church, I remember racing counselors up the stairs to get the campers' supplies at the end of the day and I remember fooling around with them whenever we had a break. Outside a classroom on the second floor I taught my girl the Hail Mary (since she was ahead of the other students) and the following year I comforted a girl outside the next door as she cried from homesickness. I was the first one singing and dancing during music class, the one who would get you any art supplies you could dream of during art class, and at lunchtime I was Super Woman, opening any water bottles and stubborn chip bags. I helped set the camp up, painting backdrops and decorating the gym and I was one of the last ones leaving on the last day.
Now church is just a grim reminder of what once was. I still don't feel welcome in my own parish and even though everyone is home from college, no one has come back to the church. I hear that other people are thriving at other parishes, but I just can't move on. Mount Carmel was my HOME and I can't believe that in a place I once felt such joy and wholeness, I now feel nothing at all. Other parishes just don't cut it. Though it is a depressing sight now, I still have the memories every time I step through those doors. Though make me sad, I can't let them go, can't forget - because that would mean forgetting that community and most importantly, forgetting my kids.
More than anything, I pray that they will be able to move on and forget. I pray that they were all saved from that priests sexist and mean spirited actions and words and I hope that this doesn't shatter their faith like it has for me. I'm still a practicing Catholic and I still believe, but these events have left a lasting scar on my soul.
I no longer sing in church, I feel guilty because I have doubt in the structure of the system of churches and its power. I feel like I don't belong in Christian or Catholic groups on campus because I consder my personal faith as inferior to their own. I just don't know how to worship anymore or be so closely connected with God.
It has been over three years since my last confession and all I want is to be able to go to camp next week like I always did all those years ago.
