I DON’T like the term ‘to lose your faith’. It implies an element of carelessness, like losing your car keys or your wallet. I prefer to think about it as faith evolving.
In my case, I no longer believe the rigid set of beliefs that was imposed on me when I was young. I have developed my own beliefs and values that have matured over the years, with education, exposure to different ideas and by reflecting on life’s experiences. On that journey, I have parted company with much of what I once believed in, regarding the Catholic Church and God.
My skepticism of the institutional church goes back a long way. Over 90 years ago, an aunt of my mother’s became pregnant as a result of rape by a wealthy farmer in rural County Monaghan. The church condemned my grandaunt but did not say a word against the man who raped her. Because of this, her only brother Tom never set foot inside a church again.
My grandaunt kept her daughter as a single parent, which was very unusual in the 1930s and she raised her very well, working hard in menial cleaning jobs. When I attended her sister’s and my grandmother’s funeral as a teenager, I vividly recall seeing an old man with a long beard, standing on a hill nearby, to pay his respects, as his sister’s coffin was brought into the church. That was Tom, clearly a man who stuck to his principles and he planted a seed in me to listen to my own inner authority as well as external authority.
My faith evolved further when I started to study scripture in Maynooth. Our scripture professor said to us: “I am going to strip away every bit of belief that you have in the scriptures bit by bit and hopefully at the end of the process replace it with a more in-depth understanding.”
He went on to tell us that absolutely nothing is known about the first 30 years of Jesus’ life and the Christmas story in Luke and Matthew’s gospel was made up from predictions in the Old Testament about the Messiah.
As time went on, I discovered that much of what we took as gospel was not factual but stories that were passed on in the oral tradition for years and years before they were translated from the original Aramaic, and written down in Greek, then translated centuries later into Latin and finally English. I came to discover that the Bible was not meant to be read as a factual, historical book as we were led to believe but more like a book of poetry and parables to guide us on life’s journey.
I discovered in church history that for the first 1,500 years of the church’s existence, people were only allowed to go to confessions once in their lifetime or for very serious sins. This made me question the ridiculous practice of regular confessions expected when I was young and is still promoted today to young innocent children before they can make their first communion. The practice of confessions may have some merit in easing the burden of guilt for someone who has done something terribly wrong but it is my opinion that it should not be inflicted on innocent children!
As for the church’s teachings on sexuality, this was hugely influenced by the teachings of St Augustine. Now the bold Augustine was rather promiscuous in his youth and had many sexual liaisons.
He then had a conversion experience and was riddled with guilt for all the pleasure that he had. He went on to write books of moral theology, which still influences the church’s teachings to the present day and promoted a negative view of pleasure and sex. I discovered over the years, that most people of my generation who were warned about the evils of the flesh, managed to ignore what we were taught and have a reasonably healthy attitude towards sex, despite the very negative messages that we were given about sexuality.
In my life, I witnessed on several occasions people who had lived very good lives and never did any harm to anyone, become ill and die, long before their prime, sometimes leaving a young family behind, and there was nothing in my years of studying theology that helped me make sense of that. I’m afraid ‘God’s will’ didn’t cut it for me. In my 20’s I was seriously ill and in hospital. The doctors were conducting many tests to try to discover the underlying cause.
One night I got spooked, I was overwhelmed with terror and I went to the church in the hospital and pleaded with God to ease my fear but I got no reprieve. The only comfort that I got was when a nurse saw my distress and gave me a diazepam. That was a pivotal moment in my journey towards disbelief. I could forgive the church for its many failings because it is a human institution made up of imperfect people but how could I believe in a God who is supposed to be all-powerful and all-loving yet remains silent when you reach out to him in distress? A light went out that night and I am still in semi-darkness.
So what do I believe in now? I believe that people are made up of a mixture of good and evil and we should strive to promote the good. I believe that it is important to have a sense of purpose and those who have, live more fulfilled lives.
For me, it doesn’t matter what you believe in as long as you believe in something beyond yourself. I believe in the healing power of forgiveness. I believe that we benefit more by giving than receiving and when we help others, we get more back in return. The world has become a very unequal place and the gap between rich and poor is shocking, I believe that no human being is superior to another.
In the beautiful words of Jesus: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.”
I am in awe of the beauty of nature and the goodness and kindness of so many people. There are so many things that are beautiful in the world we live in and I believe that we should strive to leave it in a better way than we found it. Who knows there may be something more after we die but I think it is more important to focus on the here and now and make the best of this one amazing life that we have.
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