Joe Marten
I was raised by an atheist father and a mother whose Catholicism outshone the Pope’s. I found myself, so to speak, when I was about twelve, by accident. As I lay in bed contemplating this, it occurred to me that it was the unforgivable mortal sin the nuns yammered about, and that if ever I did it again, on purpose, I would burn in the everlasting torments of Hell for all eternity. On the other hand, it was kind of nice.
My schedule of Communion, Confession, and Church never gave me much call to ask, but I knew my dad thought it was all a load of hooey. So I faced a monumental decision that would affect my entire future, beyond the grave and forever. If mom was right, I needed to get myself to the confessional, fess up to what I had done, beg forgiveness and somehow inoculate myself against ever repeating that foul and loathsome act. But then, it wasn’t all that loathsome, and if dad were to be believed, it didn’t matter. So I had to ask myself, Do You Believe this stuff?
I thought back over my years of Nun Immersion, all the stories of saints prayin’ and martyrs dyin’, of blood and wine and crucifyin’, and I thought, No. This is just silly. And just like that, I became a Heathen.
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