My Faith

I am by choice a Catholic and baptized as such. My path to baptism was a short one, much shorter than most others who went down this road before me. There were no classes, and my one on one confessional with the Priest was more an interview than a confessional. I think it is some kind of sin to divulge my confessional to you, so I will paraphrase instead. I told Father Ponticello in so many words that God was not an institution, and if he was he was also the first corporate big boss in our history, for there are many institutions proclaiming to be the one true faith and who was I to assume mine was the right one? Being a Catholic felt the most sincere and honest to me. Of course, I did not know all of the official rules, and looking back on it I am not sure Father Ponticello did as well, otherwise, I would still be sneaking the body of Christ as an outsider on occasion and on Christmas Eve.

He told me I had a very special and unique perspective on God, and did not see any reason to keep me an outsider. I was happy because this meant two things. First, I could now get married in a Catholic church, which is the most peaceful and serene thing I have done in my life. Second, I could feel better about dying and going to heaven, because that apparently was "key" to heaven and I was doing all this goody goody shit for no reason at all. That always bothered me, being baptized in order to gain access to heaven, it was like I needed a VIP to get inside the Viper room of the after-life. Aw, come on, can't I just live a good wholesome decent life and not rape or murder someone because I can? 

For the record, I am as about as Catholic, according to the rules, as an Orange is an Apple because it fell into the same fruit basket. But I do follow most of its history. Not because some asshole in a dress tells me so, but because my heart guides me here and its not been wrong so far.