Catholic Guilt

I have flashbacks every Monday. They are so intense that if I close my eyes I can actually FEEL the polyester plaid pleated skirt grazing my thighs. No, I am not visualizing that I am Britney Spears in her "Baby One More Time" video. I just went to Catholic school for many years. It probably left me just as whacked as that poor, burned-out trailer park freak of nature herself.

Sophie attends religious education every Monday afternoon. Last year I was racked with guilt about how we don't go to church enough and she has to make her 1st communion by 2nd grade or her (okay, really my) Catholic world will come crashing to an end. Hence the enrollment in another after school program. Since this epiphany did not come till middle summer time, I was admonished by being told the only hope for her would be a Saturday morning class at 8 a.m. This would clearly suck ass so I begged for an alternative. The strict, Sister Stuffy Stockings (she's not really a nun but her double knit long skirts, short Supercuts no-nonsense hairdo, and lack of makeup make me wonder) director assured me this was my only choice. Okay, Lord, thank you for having the grace to find a spot in your classroom to educate my child on who you are but you could have made it on a better day, dammit.
Lo and behold, an opening came about on a weekday which (praise Jesus!) fit exactly into my already insane schedule. Now I was already intimidated and astonished at how much this Miss Sister Director looked exactly like my grade-school principal, Sister Janet. This was only reaffirmed when she busted out the giant, brass bell on a wooden handle. When class time starts for religious ed she shakes that bell with ferocious intent, causing a clanging sound in my ears that makes me look for my milk money. Whoops, grown adult here. No religious ed needed for me anymore. Though I could stand a refresher course on certain topics.
I liked going to Catholic school. I even liked going to church, as we went for every holiday, saint's birthday, and prayer session you can imagine. True to Catholicism, we didn't know better to question these things, we just did it. It sucks that I don't really know why I believe certain things about my faith, just that a priest told me so many years ago and that's that. Religion is a bitch to question. Please don't take this as your personal cue to save me and invite me to your Methodological Spiritualistic Shaman Buddha Allah Lamma Damma Ding Dong service this Sunday. I just don't remember some shit I learned way back in grade school, that's all. I had my first reconciliation (confession for you non-Catholics), first communion, and confirmation. Then for high school I switched to public education. Good times, no uniforms, no religion. Probably would recall a bit more about J.C. if I went to parochial high school.
Catholicism has gotten a bad rap due to some pervy priests. They're not all this way. Of course I was not an impressionable young boy in an altar boy robe. Ask my brother, he might have a different view. Pretty sure he just got to hand the priest water, wine, and towels AT the altar, not behind the scenes, if ya' know what I mean. We did have one priest who creeped us out. His name was Father Rick but I think he was really named Merv the Perv. We never had formal sexual education in school. It was called "Family Life". In eighth grade I remember one particular day that my priest went from pious religious man to freaky dirty guy who no one wants to be alone with at confession. So we came inside from recess (yes, even in eighth grade we went to recess. It was a small school. We stood aound and talked about boys, it's not like we were playing on the teeter totters like some bizarre "Angel in the Centerfold" J. Geils Band video. Though Father Rick would've liked that...Back to the story.) Father Rick was standing with a slight smirk on his face, his back to the blackboard. Once the whole class had filed into the room and was seated, he stepped away from the board. It revealed he had written "TITS" and "BONER" on the chalkboard. Our priest. Who never had sex or was even interested in it. Rrrrriiiiiiiiight. He proceeded to tell us how, when we were attending these ultra-innocent dances on a Friday night held at various Catholic schools (and they WERE super innocent thanks to the 75 parent chaperones for 100 students), that certain things would happen to our bodies when we slow danced with the opposite sex. Like the boys would get a BONER and the girls would have erect nipples, which the boys would be able to feel through the girls shirts. One boy in our class argued that he had danced with many girls and he did not get a boner nor did the girls have nipple erection issues. Father Rick and this kid actually argued about this topic. An eighth grade boy who is surging with hormones and a grown man who is not supposed to to be interested in poonani. That was normal. Years later I heard a rumor that he had a mental breakdown, the priest not the kid from my class (that kid is actually an aid to President Bush so he might have some other issues to break down over anyhow).
So if you are like many of my repressed Catholic friends, let's get together and relive our memories that left us so guilt-ridden. We can discuss how some of what we learned was a load of crap. I can bust out my old plaid school uniform and we can reminisce about the stations of the cross and May Crowning. I'll even do a karaoke version of "On Eagle's Wings" for ya'. We can put Britney on our prayer list, poor dear. She just needs some good Christian guidance, don't you think? Hit me baby one more time!!!!