A Crisis of Faith

On Monday I walked into a church for the first time since my marriage ended. I didn’t go to church, I visited the St Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, New Orleans, and I went in with an attitude.

I’d been walking around New Orleans all morning listening to music, people-watching, and drinking chicory coffee. When I saw a staff member open the doors of the cathedral so visitors could enter, I decided to check it out. It looms large on the square and appears in every collection of photos of the the city, so it must be worth visiting, right? I can attest that it is truly beautiful inside.

I told myself I was just there as a curious tourist to walk through and check it off my list. The music thumping in my ears was not at all in keeping with the place, and I liked it that way. A buffer between me and the church. I saw prayer candles and made a donation so I could light one for my late grandmother, the most Catholic person I’d ever known. I felt the moment required a prayer, so I slipped into a pew, genuflecting out of habit. I knew a prayer shouldn’t have the soundtrack from my headphones and paused my music. The sounds of the church flooded in where the music had been, and I heard a recording of monks chanting in their slow, solemn tone.

I prayed as best I could. I’m a little rusty. I felt very close to my Catholic grandmother, and tried to model my life on hers. She had three children, was married until her husband died, and left us with comfort in her heart that she would be reunited with him in heaven. She was a good mom, an absolutely phenomenal grandmother, and she loved to cook. It was difficult for me to get through Mass after she passed away. All my feelings about my church home were wrapped up in her and my grandfather.

When my husband and I split, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through Mass in one piece. A failed marriage felt like a personal affront to my grandparents who set a wonderful example for me. Even without them frowning down on me from Heaven, I didn’t feel like I was leaving my church, I felt like my church had left me. Marriage in the Catholic church is blessed by God, so divorce isn’t allowed/doesn’t exist. Your union took place in God’s house, so you can’t just dissolve it in a courtroom. Technically, you can still go to church but you can’t take communion, and technically, you don’t really run afoul of the church until you remarry, because then they feel you are married twice since divorce doesn’t exist. But let’s not split hairs, here. Divorce is not allowed. I am not allowed.

It’s trite, but life is a terribly complicated business. When you’re part of a church chock full of rules and regulations, there is absolutely no chance that everyone in your pew is following along exactly how they’re supposed to. I don’t feel like divorce is the same as regular everyday sins that you can confess to your priest and get back to your life as a practicing Catholic. It’s not a lie you told that you repent for, it’s something I am every day all day. It’s not really who I am, it’s something that happened, but I can’t just go to confession every day so I can keep going to Mass. Several very good Catholics have suggested I just go anyway and omit my marital status in a new church. I could do that, as they are often more welcoming to unwed mothers than they are to divorced people, but that’s not really the point.

I’ve known for a long time that I am able to be Catholic because my life allows for it. Did I follow every single rule? Certainly not. But on the major issues the church kicks up a fuss about, I was able to get through the gates unscathed. The truth is, it’s easy to give a pass to rules that don’t apply to you. Not from a place of moral superiority, more from a grey area of N/A. I never needed an abortion, so I didn’t break that rule, and that is a huge one in my church. Possibly the biggest. I didn’t agree with the policy that forbids female leadership in the church, but I also liked my priest and didn’t want to become one myself. I strongly disagreed with their stance on the LGBTQ+ community, but I’m also not specifically excluded so I still get to attend services. It’s not that I agree with these rules, because I absolutely don’t. It’s just that I don’t have these particular “sins” on my religious resume. It’s more palatable to take an overview of the problems in the teachings when they aren’t directly talking about you.

I have a lot of empathy for people who have left the church for these and other reasons (yes, I have heard all the criticisms of the Catholic church and am well aware we are not without flaws. The church is run by humans and humans are inherently flawed.) and I almost felt like I had to apologize for being Catholic. “Oh, you were raised in the church? Me too. I get why you’re going somewhere else for your weekly dose of Jesus, now.” My church in El Paso was very progressive, and I loved it. That’s fairly rare as there is a central body that checks on those things, and every time our priest made a comment that gave me hope for the future of our church, my next thought would be, “I hope he doesn’t get in trouble for that.”

A healthy dose of my religion is really my tradition. I like my church a certain way, without a rock band or preachers in jeans. I completely understand why people love that version, but it’s not for me. I don’t feel like I’ve been to church without the kneeling and the praying in unison and the communion. Maybe it’s something to do with the nomadic lifestyle I had as a kid, and not having a true home to go back to during the summer other that my grandparents’ house, and staying with them meant church on Sunday. It was a constant in an otherwise everchanging world. Finding my own church was a way to bring the comforts of home to wherever I had moved.

I guess that means I’m homeless. It’s not that the priest himself would physically remove me from my pew, but do I want to devote myself to a place that would look down on me for a failed marriage? Or worse, only throw me out if I found someone new that made me feel happy and safe and wanted to be with me forever? Maybe this was a long time coming. Or, maybe I needed to see first hand what it felt like to be excluded from the club and be reminded that millions of good people are excluded from this same club every day for things beyond their control, or for reasons that shouldn’t be reasons at all.

And then the Pope came out against surrogacy. The same Pope that has made it easier for me to continue in my faith with hope for the growth of our church and, at the very least, doing away with outright condemning people who don’t fit our very specific rules, came out against women carrying babies for couples who can’t carry their own. The church that is pro-baby, pro-procreation, pro-family, is against surrogate pregnancy. I just…what?

I don’t know what this means for the future. My kids were also raised Catholic, all were baptized in the church and our oldest just made his First Communion. Do we abandon it all? Or do I have to explain that the church says Mommy can’t take communion anymore, but they should study to receive it themselves, for however long they’re allowed, until they, too, break a big rule and get tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave? So many people turn to their faith when things get difficult, and I don’t feel like that would help me. How can you turn to someone for help whose back is turned to you?