Cindy reflects on her Catholic upbringing...

Every now and again Cindy reads back over her journal entries written through the years. This week has been a time of nostalgia as she read about a time when she had a relapse of the old disease she calls "Catholic Guilt". Every now and again it rears its ugly head in her life. These thoughts may resonate most particularly with Catholics educated in the 1950's.

Entry from Cindy's Private Journal:

Soon my 62nd birthday will come and go and no doubt I shall reflect back upon the years as peering through 'the narrow looking glass of time' or as Morris West explained it 'from the ridge'.

50 years ago, I could never have imagined my faith would be in this place at this time of my life.

Today, I have realized more clearly than ever before, I am a totally screwed up Catholic! My entire life has pivoted around my persona as a Catholic. That Catholic education of the 1950's was more hogwash and brainwashing than any human person should have to suffer. We were sausages in a machine, churned out with rules and regulations embedded into our being in such a way, that it would take the rest of our lives to unravel the good from the evil in an attempt to find a normal existence.

I believed everything those nuns told us. The poor women themselves were brainwashed and living a most abnormal existence. A dozen of them lived in a convent. Imagine 12 women, all dressed alike, living under one roof. They were worked to death teaching classes of up to 80 children. How could they remember the names of any of us children let alone discover the unique God-given talents of the children or even themselves. Most of them were young and idealistic. They no doubt, had had the same type of education they were passing on to us — rules, rules and more rules. Live your lives to please a God who took note of every wrongdoing because down the track you would have to pay heavily for every nasty little thought you ever had about anyone.

Repressed emotions...

Yes, we were educated by well-meaning women, who lived a code of 'custody of the eyes'. They learned to repress their emotions and were not permitted to attend funerals for the close members of their families. I know of one nun who was close enough to the church building to know her dear Dad was being buried from there that very morning. Yet she was not allowed to attend nor speak about it to anyone. Her fondest memory is how the young nun sitting silently next to her at breakfast slid her hand under the table and gave her hand a squeeze. Had the Mother Superior seen this action they would publicly have needed to confess this rule infringement and accept punishment.

I now pain to think of these women. Maybe their lives were even more screwed up than their students? They were good women, even if their actions were not. Their religious beliefs came from a hierarchical system of indoctrination passed down through centuries of Catholic culture. They deserved better. They offered their entire lives to God for goodness sakes, and what did they get — more rules in the convent! Of the twelve, only one showed any signs of happiness and she was no doubt an Enneagram Seven. How she survived in such a dismal atmosphere is a miracle.

Yes, my heart goes out to those nuns and to all of us who were minced in that Catholic education machine in the post-war 1950's. For sure I am not the only one still trying to make sense of it all and recover from the trauma.

Pictures of hell were painted by those nuns in such vivid colours — Dante's description paled in comparison. It seemed just about everything was a sin, either mortal or venial, and damnation into eternal hellfire was the price of sin. Our minds became bogged down with images of a fiery afterlife if we dared think outside the Catholic square of sin and punishment.

Weird...

It is all so weird. I loved being Catholic and in some ways I still do. But the system has stunted some part of my inner life that has in medical terms simply 'failed to thrive'. One can look back with deep sadness and realize we caught the disease of a permanent 'guilty conscience'.

Somewhere in my being is a part that has never been brought to birth — a part that is happy and free and longs to fly away and enjoy the God of goodness and Love totally free of past baggage.

Maybe there is a condition named 'religious cancer'? When the human psyche has been so damaged by false teaching — an operation is needed to remove the diseased section of brain memory. How is that achieved — years of Spiritual Direction and Psychotherapy?

Then follow-up chemotherapy perhaps? I am not advocating prescription drugs though depression among Catholics at this age is extremely common. How sad is that — how incredibly bloody sad is it that some Catholics are so damaged psychologically the chances are they will never fully recover. Worst scenario — spiritual death, shutdown.

What can we do to bring healing?

Still the hierarchy wonder "why are they leaving, these strong cradle Catholic women and men, why are they leaving?" It would be more relevant to ask "what can we do to bring healing so they will stay?"

Cancer patients spend time in remission. The spiritual life is something like that for many Catholics. Then the old traumas resurface and have to be fairly faced head on if the path forward is progress. Cancers may resurface when we least expect them. Wounds we thought long healed, break open and need attention. The festering will not disappear without nurturing and loving care.

My hobbies act as my chemotherapy. Getting the poison out of my body into something creative and original. Allowing space for the goodness of the Loving God to seep into my being and bring healing to those places that have again become inflamed. It is the aftermath of the disease and needs to be listened to.

Faith is a gift from God. Sadly our human weaknesses have contaminated the purity of the gift by faulty teaching and wonky theology passed onto us over the years. With God, it is never too late to begin life over again with a clean slate and perhaps that is the biggest gift God can give to anyone.

Cindy has now recovered from this attack and is safely in remission until the next recurrence of what seems to her an almost incurable disease.

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Cindy the Sacristan is the pseudonym of one of the long-time members of our community. In real life she has spent many years in a voluntary capacity as sacristan in a large outer suburban parish.

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