~now i'm aiming for heaven, but probably wind up down in hell~

somewhere along the line i decided i wanted a sacred heart tattoo.  not in a visible spot, not to show off some sailor jerry rip-off shit, but just... to be there.  for me.  when i tell friends that, they often ask why, i haven't been a practicing catholic in decades. aye, but once i was a devout, church every sunday, praying daily kind of catholic.  and that's a stain you can't wash off.  

i've been wrestling with catholicism lately.  some people go hard when they go back to religion, they do the whole nine yards.  not me.  i've fallen back in like a good irish catholic, lazy and guilty.  but this time without the motivation of belief.  we want to get minerva baptized, as eric says "it's soul insurance."  thus, i began going to church again.  and every single mass i attend reminds me of why i quit in the first place. oh catholicism, you tricky fucker.  while its lovely that you think all people are equal and we were all created by god, fuck you, marriage is for everybody, no, i don't pray for an end to abortion, and you damned well better get fined for not covering birth control for your employees.  this past sunday the bishop was in, and halfway through his little speech on all the 'problems' facing the catholic church nowadays i became so angry i packed minerva back into her carrier and we left.  i was near tears, i felt crushed and betrayed, by them and by myself.  how could i be so stupid to think i could handle the same bullshit that drove me away almost twenty years ago?  how could they be so ignorant and hateful?  how dare i consider this as something i wanted in my daughter's life?  then i stop and think about my own mother, where many of my beliefs came from.  she did this same thing, and for 13 years, no less.  and look how i turned out. (yeah yeah, say what you will...)  i do not walk the party line as far as the socio-political bullshit is concerned, but i have the guilt, the charity, and the desire to make the world a better place whether or not it benefits me.  can't i just instill these morals in minerva without subjecting her to some jackass in a funny hat?  

eric asked me whether my problem was catholicism, or the people running it, and reminded me of a moment around thanksgiving.  i was having a discussion with my grandmother and a great-aunt of mine who happens to be a nun.  she expressed that she was not fond of the current bishop, which i found terribly interesting.  another great-aunt-nun of mine (yes, that makes 2 nuns, to top it all off there's a priest somewhere in ireland) stated that she disliked the latest pope.  dissent!  and it was not a sinful thing!  perhaps i was getting too wrapped up in what this man that even others who had dedicated their lives to god did not agree with entirely had to say.  (that sentence is clumsy, but its midnight so it stays) i just don't think i can make the kind of sacrifice of time and morals that my mother made to bring me all the way through confirmation.  if my grandfather were still alive, he would get her baptized whether i was on board or not.  perhaps i owe it to him, and my ancestry, and my culture, to do this.