Introduction
The subject of religion had occupied a large mass of the grey matter for almost as long as I can remember. This brain was inundated early in life with dogma of the Roman Catholic variety that may well have provoked some damage to the fragile specimen. At some undefined stage of my development it began to progressively challenge the contradictory and often incomprehensible doctrines put forward by the institution and ultimately about its hostility to normal consensual human sexuality. Raised in a dedicated Catholic family, my earliest recollections of religion were not good….and should you poke a little closer into this sequence of events, you might come to the conclusion that ‘not good’ is a monster of an understatement.
Christianity was ruthlessly pounded into me no sooner that I had exited the birth canal. Hauled off to a church barely after taking my first breath and despite my wailing protests, I was subjected to a cold dip by a dude wearing a somewhat dated looking dress who performed a ceremony known as the baptism. This, I guarantee, was not exactly my idea of fun. Then the horror of seeing a poor fellow nailed to a massive floodlit cross with blood dripping crimson from various wounds had no doubt contributed to the scars inflicted on this young susceptible intellect. Soon after being able to stand, I was forced to kneel for excruciatingly long periods every Sunday in an even more eerie proceeding that they called the mass. This ceremony included a symbolic ritual that involved eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the dead fellow hanging on the cross. Not long after that the catechism classes began under the direction of a dried up old bird dressed from head to toe in a black gown who looked every bit the splitting image of a scarecrow. She went by the name of Sister Abigail. Thus began the indoctrination into concepts that were so bizarre that it would make the phrase “alternative facts” seem quite normal, and even at that tender age, challenged the capacities of this prickly young mind.
It started with the legend of the Virgin Mary; a mind boggling concept that flew in startling contradiction to the mechanics of the birds and the bees’ principle as explained to me by an elder brother. I would much later come to discover that the same Virgin Mary delivered none less than six infants in addition to the one that figuratively became a rock star in a modern day musical hit. Then came the convoluted explanation of the Holy Trinity, a theory that this reeling brain somehow connected to a popular lubricant called “3 in 1” Oil. We later heard about God pulling a prank on a gentleman called Abraham whereby he instructs this daddy to kill his own son Isaac. But just when Abraham is about to slit the throat of Isaac, God sends an angel who exclaims: “Just kidding…… April Fools!” or something equally ridiculous. What I found inconceivable about this story was that Abraham was actually going to implement this gruesome directive from God…….and comes within a hair of executing his son. We went on to learn about this fellow Jesus’ temper tantrums such as the time that he killed a fig tree because it wasn’t bearing fruit and another incident when he slaughters two thousand pigs because he gets miffed at a couple of zombies.
Further catechism instruction led us into shocking stories such as when God initiated the murder of all the first born children of Egypt because the Pharaoh wouldn’t set the Israelites free. Right on the heels of this frightening chronicle we learn about the massacre of the Canaanites under the banner of a chap called Moses because these hapless Canaanites had the impudence and misfortune to be occupying the land that Moses and his people had set their sights on. Sister Abigail nonchalantly justified this event by saying: “well in any case, they were worshipping bronze cows and other such false idols instead of worshipping the one true and magnanimous Lord in Heaven.”
I’m not sure precisely when the grey stuff began performing back flips, triple salchows and various acrobatic stunts in trying to deal with these brain teasers, but I suppose in retrospect that the pressure kind of built up and finally snapped somewhat like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. And so it went until my cognizance of the mystery and intrigue of the opposite sex gave new meaning to my life. But Sister Abigail, the Mother Killjoy Superior, threw a bucket of ice cold water over those emerging vibrations by pulverizing the idea of sex as a natural and beautiful gift provided by God. Never mind that the act was essential to the propagation of life on Earth as we know it. Instead, she tar brushed sex as something filthy, shameful and most certainly sinful if performed out of wedlock. Forget about purgatory if you broke these rules, this was a one-way ticket on the inferno express straight to Hell.
All of the foresaid were the prime movers in triggering the rebellion. But despite my dismissal of what in due course I concluded was an absurd cult riddled with repulsive rites and horrific mythology, the questions lingered. I discovered that indoctrination inflicted drip by drip and blow by blow on the cerveau from the time of birth is difficult to dispel. It has a bothersome tendency to want to stick to the grey matter like dog excrement on the sole of your shoe. But something happened at a certain juncture whereby an unexpected character appeared in my life who turned out to be the perfect sounding board, or some might say punching bag, and whom was quite willing to lend an ear to my grievances and even take a few on the chin in defense of his institution and his beliefs.
