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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