You'd think that once somebody lost their religion - in my case, left the Catholic Church, that would be the end of it. But it isn't. A person just can't forget about their upbringing and it was one of the Jesuits who said "Give me a child til he's 6 years old and I'll have him for the rest of his life." Whoever it was was right. You may not have that person fully or completely - there's no such thing as a free and clear title on somebody's heart - but you still have a hold...a foot hold...a toe hold.
The Hub doesn't want me to blog about this. It's not because he objects to me sharing my innermost thoughts with people I don't even know on the internet - hell, he thinks that's a great idea. ( "I read your blog to find out what you're thinking since, when I ask you, you just say 'little bird thoughts'. It's very frustrating, you know.")
He says that it upsets me and then I stay up until 4:00 in the morning which prevents the dog from getting in his 17 hours a day of sleep and makes him anxious.
He's right. I shouldn't try to hash the whole thing out in one blog. Maybe I can just write about why am even thinking about the possibility of returning to the Catholic Church.
I keep meeting people who ask me about it, for one thing. Both Cat Lady and Rev. T.D. have questioned me very closely on my feelings about the church, about why I left, and what I miss about it. Cat Lady went through the process of an anullment, which is, in my mind a whole huge can of worms that I don't even want to look at, let alone open up. But she insists that it would be "easy" and "not very expensive". My dad slipped a brochure on the annullment proceedure into my handbag a few months ago. I've been married to The Hub - we got married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse - for 9 years. You can say a lot of things about Dad, but you can't say he gives up easily. And it isn't like he rammed it down my throat. He just gave me the brochure so I would have the information - knowlege is power. He wants me to be happy. I suspect that he knows, on some level, that the kid he had who used to go to mass every day in her early 20's must be hurt by the seperation. Sigh.
But I was married to my first husband when I joined the Quaker Meeting. It never entered my mind that I might divorce and remarry. My mom says that the stuff you worry about never happens...it's always the stuff that you never worry about because you never think it will happen to you that happens to you. My mom is very wise - I think she is onto some kind of cosmic law or something. After I did marry The Hub - I said that there was no way I would ever consider going back to "the church" because they wouldn't have me. As it stands, I couldn't recieve communion, which, for a Catholic is the point of going to mass. At least it was for me.
Yet this brochure and Cat Lady make it sound like the church has an attitude similar to mine about my first marriage: it was a mistake in judgement. The church, I am given to understand, recognises that there are situations in which, at the time the person enters into a marriage they seem to know their own mind but they don't really. Youthful inexperience, major depression, inattentiveness on the part of the counseling preist ( who was not long after that arrested and convicted as a child molester...you can understand why his head might not have totally been in the game there) might cause "the church" to look at my first marriage and say "It was not a union that God joined together" and the fact that my first husband and I had no children together, though we certainly tried hard enough, might be considered further confirmation of that idea....or at least a big relief.
I don't know. I'm confused. I'm tired. I think I'll read my spy book for a little while and go to bed.....it's all about how Robert Hansen was probably influenced by the Opus Dei when he committed treason. Now there's a cheery thought
Annulment. Yeah, I can tell you ALL about that little procedure. And Rob can tell you what I went through when I got mine, too. Yeah. Fun.
That said, I have recently learned that mine should have been MUCH easier than it was -- I was basically shafted by the tribunal.
I ain't been the same since.
Posted by: Geren at March 29, 2005 8:55 AM
This reply is Strictly Not Approved By Anyone, and contains Very Strong Words about various aspects of Catholicism. It is not a polemic against Catholics.
I have problems with the "annulment" process. It smacks of the selling of indulgences - Pay Us Enough Money, and Your Problems Will Go Away. Despite the "official" word that the amount of the "contribution" has no effect over the outcome, I haven't seen a divorce so sordid that the proper amount of cash to the right people couldn't garner a Decree of Nullity. Why money is even a factor in such a process is beyond me. The idea of having to pay the Catholic Church anything to arbitrate a ruling necessitated by their own canon law just seems ludicrous. Either your petition has merit, or it does not. Shelling out hundreds of dollars for a Decree (and you'd both need one for you and The Hub to be married in the Catholic faith - the Church considers anyone married to a divorcee, Catholic or not, whose marriage was not annulled to be an adulterer) just seems to be just shy of extortionist in practice. Although, since I'm not a scholar of Canon Law, I don't know that the death of an ex-spouse relieves one of that responsibility. The fact that you'd even need to worry about it p*sses me off.
You and The Hub are happily married, and neither of you require the official okey-dokey of the Catholic Church to lend legitimacy to that union. Somehow, I don't see subjecting that union to the morass of Catholic bureaucracy and the resultant, prying "investigation" benefits either of you. I would caution that this sort of decision doesn't just affect you - it'll drag your husband into it as well. The Hub will need to be 100% with you on the decision, or it will go badly.
That's my take on it, though I'm sure that you will make the decision that's best for you, based on your conscience.
Posted by: Rob at March 29, 2005 3:22 PM
I thought that you were happy being a Quaker. What's up with that?
Posted by: Theresa at March 29, 2005 6:45 PM
Lynn, I can't believe that I am reading that you are seriously considering a return to the Catholic Church. To say that I am shocked and dismayed is an understatement. Seriously, I suggest that you try Lutheranism before going back Catholic. It's all the religion with one quarter the guilt (even less). Kind of like Catholic Lite... really lite.
I was brought up Catholic and am I ever glad I escaped that money grubbing guilt factory!
Pay "the church" (what's with calling it "the church"?) enough money and they gaurantee you a place in heaven! Pay your pew dues and get a better spot in Heaven! Pass the collection plate three plus times and don't you dare put in a coupon for 30 cents off Shake and Bake or you will go straight to hell! Oh, a little behind on your pew dues when you die? No problem, just spend a few centuries in purgatory to pay that off! Where in the Bible is purgatory even mentioned!? And the whole priesthood thing that you have to confess to a priest for forgiveness of sins! EXCUSE ME! And that priest are the only ones who can give out a "proper" Eucharist! SAY WHAT! AND "the church" (pardon me if I spit when I say that) wants to make Mary the co-redemptress putting her equal with Jesus. PLUH-EEEZE!!!
Lynn, you know me and I am all about personal liberties and freedoms and I would never tell you don't (although I am pretty close to that), but as your friend of over twenty years I have to advise you against it.
This comment went on far longer than I intended, but once I get rolling...
Peace and friendship,
--Will
Posted by: Will Burnham at March 29, 2005 8:47 PM
Oh and one more thing... The Jews invented guilt, but it took the Catholics to perfect it. Just remember that.
Peace and friendship,
--Will
Posted by: Will Burnham at March 29, 2005 9:39 PM
OK, this may be a mistake starting this so late at night, but here goes...
The intent of the annullment process is to allow Catholics to remarry within the church. Since biblical teachings are generally against divorce (which, by the way, should tell us something: any text that speaks against a given practice shows that such practice is happening) the Catholic heirarchy formulated annullment as a way to let people 'off the hook' and declare them free to remarry. The intent is one of understanding and compassion, so that for instance in my case, someone left behind by a spouse who suddenly decides he/she wants to take off, does not have to be bound to that person for the rest of their lives. It's also possible to apply for an annullment even if you were the one who took off, due to immaturity or some other impediment that existed at the time of the marriage, and which prevented you from making an honest, valid (sacramental) vow. The intent is good; the practice, as noted in Geren's case above, is not always what it should be.
In the case of my first marriage, I was the one who left, but my ex applied for the annullment on grounds of his own. I fully worked with the DC Tribunal and filled out all the paperwork, answered the challenging questions that required me to delve into my psyche and address what went wrong, but when the decree came, my part was completely missing. When I called the Tribunal office, I was told that for each reason the tribunal cites as valid grounds for an annullment, they must also provide full explanation of why the grounds are valid. Thus, to include my efforts in the decree would have spent more time. I felt that it invalidated all the work and self-searching I'd done. I didn't lose out because all that work benefitted me in the long run, but I was quite disappointed in the tribunal's unwillingness ot validate my reasons for leaving the marriage (which were just as crucial as my ex's.)
Making my second marriage go away (yah, when I was a little girl i must have said - hey! i wanna be divorced twice before I'm 42!!!) will be easy, since we weren't married in the Catholic church. (Therein lies the problem with Geren's annullment -- he was forced to go through the complete full-blown process even though the marriage being anulled wasn't in the Catholic church! Imagine his consternation when I told him I could easily and much less cheaply get my second marriage annulled...and who can blame him? certainly not me.)
So this time we're being married by a Methodist minister friend of ours. It's unfair of me to expect Geren to seek an annullment again after all he went through the last time. And...the older I get and more my spiritual life gets put together...and although I understand T's references to eucharist being important...I've become quite lax about the whole denominational thing. God doesn't care. God just wants us to HAVE a spiritual life and be in conscious contact with him. Where we do that is, I think, less important to God than it is to the people around us who are sometimes so willing to judge our worth as human beings according to whether we belong to the 'right' church. (oops, my bad experiences in non-mainline churches are showing...)
I wasn't a cradle-Catholic, so I don't have the bad childhood experiences of guilt that others remember. And I do believe my parents raised me well!
God is God. We are his people. Why can't we all just get along???
Posted by: Donna at March 30, 2005 12:15 AM
To answer Donna's final query - I think "we" as people generally get along fairly well. People in general seem to have a willingness to accept differences up to a certain individual level. It's the institutions that have a power base to protect that tend to instruct us in the ways of intolerance. To an extent, any institution, whether it be religious, political, or otherwise, protects its dogma by perpetuating conflict with other dogmatic institutions. It's how they maintain differentiation.
In my opinion (and that's all it is), it's the more personal, less institutional forms of religion that seem the most sincere. The more ritual, pomp, and rote ceremony that surrounds any given denomination, the more apt the congregation is to "go through the motions" of ritual without actualy examining their faith. It's one of the main reasons I left Catholicsm - not only did I not jive with the Holy See's take on any number of matters, but the whole exercise of "worship" seemed so robotic and empty of any real meaning.
I tell Theresa the story of having to serve Mass, and listening to the old geezers roll through the Novena to Mary afterwards as I cleaned up. This is what it sounded like:
Leader: (in the style of tobacco auctioneer) "Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitof thywombjee- zuss."
Congregation:
:mumble: :mumble: :mumble:
Leader: "Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththee..."
Repeat ad nauseum for every decade of the rosary, interrupted every ten iterations for the Lord's Prayer. This is what Catholicism became for me - rattle the prayer beads, mumble the words, pay your cash, and then kill each other on the way out of the parking lot to be first at IHOP for pancakes. :sigh:
Sorry to be a downer on this. I know I'm the least pious person in our little circle to make commentary on this topic.
Posted by: Rob at March 30, 2005 8:53 AM
You certainly provided food for thought with this blog, Tea.
Posted by: Theresa at March 31, 2005 4:07 PM
Rob - you speak truth! I'm frequently reminded how lucky I am that I didn't grow up going to mass, and how lucky we are to have a liberal pastor over here. We attended a nice little protestant church on Easter (ooh, a Catholic not in a Catholic church on Easter!) It wasn't what I was expecting, but it wasn't bad either. What really struck us both was how the congregation came together to form a genuine community - not just a group of people inside a building. That was way cool!
After attending lots of different (and some not so mainstream) churches over the years, I'm becoming like my Mom and Dad, who go wherever they want regardless of the name on the door. They choose where to worship according to what's nearest the house (seeing as how they either go to the little church six miles down the road, or drive about an hour to the next city) or where there's cool stuff going on (that would be the church in the next city.)
Posted by: Donna at March 31, 2005 7:46 PM
Annulment. Yeah, I can tell you ALL about that little procedure. And Rob can tell you what I went through when I got mine, too. Yeah. Fun.
That said, I have recently learned that mine should have been MUCH easier than it was -- I was basically shafted by the tribunal.
I ain't been the same since.
Posted by: Geren at March 29, 2005 8:55 AMThis reply is Strictly Not Approved By Anyone, and contains Very Strong Words about various aspects of Catholicism. It is not a polemic against Catholics.
I have problems with the "annulment" process. It smacks of the selling of indulgences - Pay Us Enough Money, and Your Problems Will Go Away. Despite the "official" word that the amount of the "contribution" has no effect over the outcome, I haven't seen a divorce so sordid that the proper amount of cash to the right people couldn't garner a Decree of Nullity. Why money is even a factor in such a process is beyond me. The idea of having to pay the Catholic Church anything to arbitrate a ruling necessitated by their own canon law just seems ludicrous. Either your petition has merit, or it does not. Shelling out hundreds of dollars for a Decree (and you'd both need one for you and The Hub to be married in the Catholic faith - the Church considers anyone married to a divorcee, Catholic or not, whose marriage was not annulled to be an adulterer) just seems to be just shy of extortionist in practice. Although, since I'm not a scholar of Canon Law, I don't know that the death of an ex-spouse relieves one of that responsibility. The fact that you'd even need to worry about it p*sses me off.
You and The Hub are happily married, and neither of you require the official okey-dokey of the Catholic Church to lend legitimacy to that union. Somehow, I don't see subjecting that union to the morass of Catholic bureaucracy and the resultant, prying "investigation" benefits either of you. I would caution that this sort of decision doesn't just affect you - it'll drag your husband into it as well. The Hub will need to be 100% with you on the decision, or it will go badly.
That's my take on it, though I'm sure that you will make the decision that's best for you, based on your conscience.
Posted by: Rob at March 29, 2005 3:22 PMI thought that you were happy being a Quaker. What's up with that?
Posted by: Theresa at March 29, 2005 6:45 PMLynn, I can't believe that I am reading that you are seriously considering a return to the Catholic Church. To say that I am shocked and dismayed is an understatement. Seriously, I suggest that you try Lutheranism before going back Catholic. It's all the religion with one quarter the guilt (even less). Kind of like Catholic Lite... really lite.
I was brought up Catholic and am I ever glad I escaped that money grubbing guilt factory!
Pay "the church" (what's with calling it "the church"?) enough money and they gaurantee you a place in heaven! Pay your pew dues and get a better spot in Heaven! Pass the collection plate three plus times and don't you dare put in a coupon for 30 cents off Shake and Bake or you will go straight to hell! Oh, a little behind on your pew dues when you die? No problem, just spend a few centuries in purgatory to pay that off! Where in the Bible is purgatory even mentioned!? And the whole priesthood thing that you have to confess to a priest for forgiveness of sins! EXCUSE ME! And that priest are the only ones who can give out a "proper" Eucharist! SAY WHAT! AND "the church" (pardon me if I spit when I say that) wants to make Mary the co-redemptress putting her equal with Jesus. PLUH-EEEZE!!!
Lynn, you know me and I am all about personal liberties and freedoms and I would never tell you don't (although I am pretty close to that), but as your friend of over twenty years I have to advise you against it.
This comment went on far longer than I intended, but once I get rolling...
Peace and friendship,
Posted by: Will Burnham at March 29, 2005 8:47 PM--Will
Oh and one more thing... The Jews invented guilt, but it took the Catholics to perfect it. Just remember that.
Peace and friendship,
Posted by: Will Burnham at March 29, 2005 9:39 PM--Will
OK, this may be a mistake starting this so late at night, but here goes...
The intent of the annullment process is to allow Catholics to remarry within the church. Since biblical teachings are generally against divorce (which, by the way, should tell us something: any text that speaks against a given practice shows that such practice is happening) the Catholic heirarchy formulated annullment as a way to let people 'off the hook' and declare them free to remarry. The intent is one of understanding and compassion, so that for instance in my case, someone left behind by a spouse who suddenly decides he/she wants to take off, does not have to be bound to that person for the rest of their lives. It's also possible to apply for an annullment even if you were the one who took off, due to immaturity or some other impediment that existed at the time of the marriage, and which prevented you from making an honest, valid (sacramental) vow. The intent is good; the practice, as noted in Geren's case above, is not always what it should be.
In the case of my first marriage, I was the one who left, but my ex applied for the annullment on grounds of his own. I fully worked with the DC Tribunal and filled out all the paperwork, answered the challenging questions that required me to delve into my psyche and address what went wrong, but when the decree came, my part was completely missing. When I called the Tribunal office, I was told that for each reason the tribunal cites as valid grounds for an annullment, they must also provide full explanation of why the grounds are valid. Thus, to include my efforts in the decree would have spent more time. I felt that it invalidated all the work and self-searching I'd done. I didn't lose out because all that work benefitted me in the long run, but I was quite disappointed in the tribunal's unwillingness ot validate my reasons for leaving the marriage (which were just as crucial as my ex's.)
Making my second marriage go away (yah, when I was a little girl i must have said - hey! i wanna be divorced twice before I'm 42!!!) will be easy, since we weren't married in the Catholic church. (Therein lies the problem with Geren's annullment -- he was forced to go through the complete full-blown process even though the marriage being anulled wasn't in the Catholic church! Imagine his consternation when I told him I could easily and much less cheaply get my second marriage annulled...and who can blame him? certainly not me.)
So this time we're being married by a Methodist minister friend of ours. It's unfair of me to expect Geren to seek an annullment again after all he went through the last time. And...the older I get and more my spiritual life gets put together...and although I understand T's references to eucharist being important...I've become quite lax about the whole denominational thing. God doesn't care. God just wants us to HAVE a spiritual life and be in conscious contact with him. Where we do that is, I think, less important to God than it is to the people around us who are sometimes so willing to judge our worth as human beings according to whether we belong to the 'right' church. (oops, my bad experiences in non-mainline churches are showing...)
I wasn't a cradle-Catholic, so I don't have the bad childhood experiences of guilt that others remember. And I do believe my parents raised me well!
God is God. We are his people. Why can't we all just get along???
Posted by: Donna at March 30, 2005 12:15 AMTo answer Donna's final query - I think "we" as people generally get along fairly well. People in general seem to have a willingness to accept differences up to a certain individual level. It's the institutions that have a power base to protect that tend to instruct us in the ways of intolerance. To an extent, any institution, whether it be religious, political, or otherwise, protects its dogma by perpetuating conflict with other dogmatic institutions. It's how they maintain differentiation.
In my opinion (and that's all it is), it's the more personal, less institutional forms of religion that seem the most sincere. The more ritual, pomp, and rote ceremony that surrounds any given denomination, the more apt the congregation is to "go through the motions" of ritual without actualy examining their faith. It's one of the main reasons I left Catholicsm - not only did I not jive with the Holy See's take on any number of matters, but the whole exercise of "worship" seemed so robotic and empty of any real meaning.
I tell Theresa the story of having to serve Mass, and listening to the old geezers roll through the Novena to Mary afterwards as I cleaned up. This is what it sounded like:
Leader: (in the style of tobacco auctioneer) "Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitof thywombjee- zuss."
Congregation:
:mumble: :mumble: :mumble:
Leader: "Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththee..."
Repeat ad nauseum for every decade of the rosary, interrupted every ten iterations for the Lord's Prayer. This is what Catholicism became for me - rattle the prayer beads, mumble the words, pay your cash, and then kill each other on the way out of the parking lot to be first at IHOP for pancakes. :sigh:
Sorry to be a downer on this. I know I'm the least pious person in our little circle to make commentary on this topic.
Posted by: Rob at March 30, 2005 8:53 AMYou certainly provided food for thought with this blog, Tea.
Posted by: Theresa at March 31, 2005 4:07 PMRob - you speak truth! I'm frequently reminded how lucky I am that I didn't grow up going to mass, and how lucky we are to have a liberal pastor over here. We attended a nice little protestant church on Easter (ooh, a Catholic not in a Catholic church on Easter!) It wasn't what I was expecting, but it wasn't bad either. What really struck us both was how the congregation came together to form a genuine community - not just a group of people inside a building. That was way cool!
After attending lots of different (and some not so mainstream) churches over the years, I'm becoming like my Mom and Dad, who go wherever they want regardless of the name on the door. They choose where to worship according to what's nearest the house (seeing as how they either go to the little church six miles down the road, or drive about an hour to the next city) or where there's cool stuff going on (that would be the church in the next city.)
Posted by: Donna at March 31, 2005 7:46 PM