RIP

I was baptized when I was a year old. My parents are of two different religions my mother is Baptist and my father is Catholic. I was baptized Catholic but I went to two churches every Sunday. I would go with my Dad to mass and then to church with my Mom. When I became old enough I became an alter boy and pretty much only attended mass. My interest in church started waning when I was 17 but my parents said that I had to go to a church of my choice until I was 18 and then I could make my own decision. I stuck with the Catholic Church for many reasons. None of them good. I knew that I could go to mass on Saturday evening leaving me time to go out with my friends on Saturday night and I didn’t have to get up early on Sundays. Also I didn’t have to get dressed up to go to mass. I even wore jeans on a few occasions. But a good reason why I liked going to mass was that I knew what to expect. I knew it wouldn’t last more than 45 minutes. I knew when to stand and when to kneel. I knew when I had to go to confession and when I needed to go but didn’t.

When I went to college and stopped going home every weekend I stopped going to church. My parents were not happy but they lived up to their decision. I have missed church. I believe God and all that stuff. There are also times that I follow the basic teaches of Catholicism. I rarely eat meat on Fridays. I’ve been known to do a couple of rounds with my rosary and I wear a st. Christopher medallion which even though he’s not a saint anymore he’s still widely recognized in the Catholic community.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with the Pope for a long time. I didn’t understand why he was so stubborn on abortion and birth control. Let alone Gay rights. But then as I became older I became a bit more tolerant. He is the leader of the Catholic Church. He is a man of an older generation. How could I expect him to change his views? I was very impressed with him when he condemned the US for keeping abusing priests a secret. I had great respect for him when told President Bush that this war was wrong. I started to realize that I could respect the Pope for who he was and what he stood for. I just couldn’t follow him. Just like it’s hard for me to follow any religious leader which is why I don’t go to church now but that’s a whole different story.

Yesterday when I was packing my stuff I heard that the Pope was doing better and I was relieved a little. By the time I got home I’d heard that he’d died and then not so much. I decided that it was a little wrong for me to get involved in the death watch. I said a prayer that whatever God’s will was that it would be followed. I said the same prayer for Terri Schavio. Anyway I’ve been doing nothing much today but I would check on line a couple of times to check and see if anything had changed. My Mom called me later and told me that he had died. She was surprisingly sad as was I. I’m not really sure why. I guess I’ve come to terms with the hate the sin but love the sinner. I felt that the Pope tried to live by that. I’ve never seen him picket funerals saying that a Gay person was going to burn in hell or that AIDS was a just cause by God. He just spoke his believes. Even though I disagreed with a lot of the Popes views I do think he was a good man and I know that he’s in a better place right now and hopefully he will see that he was right about a lot of things but misguided about a lot also.

Rest in Peace Pope John Paul II

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