Why I became Catholic…

The day I was born, I wasn’t Catholic at all and I had no good reason to become one. I was far too young, I didn’t know anything, believed only in survival and that’s about it. My parents then thought they would have to get me baptized and later on, sent me to catechism. 

They did it because everyone else in their community did it with their off-springs. Even though my Mom had the fear of God in her, it was mostly social pressure that dictated my parents’ behavior towards religious education. 

Catechism was interesting because I’ve always liked history and since it was a branch subject that paralleled what I was taught in school I accepted it as true as well. I thought God was strict and was not a particularly gregarious character and if I believed in the story the priest told us, it’s because I thought it was factual, but I had no personal faith in God, Mary or Christ. 

I also enrolled into becoming an altar boy which gave me a free subscription to a children periodical with cartoons in it, and I liked that a lot. The priests I served mass with weren’t particular fun, but they were correct and with my colleagues we laughed a lot whenever we could and the priest couldn’t see. 

As I became adolescent, I realized that this religious stuff was a bunch of crap, constituted a pool of contradictions and was severely oppressing me. In summary, the influence of religion on my life was no longer (and never was) a positive and constructive experience, but it took me a long time to free myself from the power of control it exerted on me. 

On the positive side, I learned “Church Latin” and expressions like ite missa est (the Assembly is dismissed) and that’s not so bad! 

Bottom line, though, I was deeply contaminated, and to this day, I consider that my religious upbringing as a kid was and still remains a true form of child abuse.