Hey God, It's Me Again
- Vanessa Norris
- 14 hours ago
- 5 min read
A Catholic girl's confession
By: Vanessa Norris
When you are born and raised Catholic, you are taught to move in silence.
You read the Children’s Illustrated version of the Bible, which gives you your first impressions of death, slavery, poverty, nudeness and gore. You ask your parents and grandparents questions, and receive half-truths in return. You sit quietly through Mass every Sunday, trying your hardest not to laugh with your sister. You attend religious after-school classes every Tuesday for 10 years, daydreaming through lessons and anticipating the Wendy’s meal your dad promised you for dinner.
You do not question your religion. You do not brag about your religion. You do not bring politics into your religion.
Your relationship with Jesus? Keep it to yourself. Move in silence.
You learn the religion not by merely studying it but by experiencing the culture, and Catholic culture is difficult to grasp when you haven’t lived through it every day since the day you were born.
Growing up, I never talked about my religion. As far as I knew, everyone around me at school was either unreligious or some other variation of Christian. None of my friends went to Mass. None of them received their First Communion in second grade, like I did. As a young girl, being Catholic was confusing — I didn’t understand why my religion practiced so differently from others when we all worshiped the same God.
At church, sometimes I would spot someone I recognized from school, always someone I had never interacted with outside of Four Square during recess. In these circumstances, the routine was always the same: don’t acknowledge each other in church, and don’t talk about it at school.
As I got older, my religion shifted from confusing to irrelevant. I did what I had to for my confirmation, and that was that. I was a sophomore in high school, and devoting myself to faith was the last thing on my mind.
I had developed an interest in journalism, politics and literature, evidently learning about the undeniable failures of the Catholic church. The misalignments of my personal beliefs and standardized Catholic beliefs were staggering.
How could I associate with a religion that condemns divorce, same-sex marriage and birth control? How is it possible for dozens of Catholic priests to molest children and be protected by the very same institution we are supposed to trust? Why are so many devoted worshipers of God unexplainably cruel to the most vulnerable groups of people?
Vocalizing these thoughts was out of the question — it would make me a “bad Catholic,” something I’d been warned against since elementary school. And, despite my drift from the church, it was never something I truly wanted to let go of.
How could I? When the first thought I had before every high school volleyball game was directed toward Jesus, asking for bravery and strength? Or when I lost a family member and chose to communicate with them through prayer? Or when I was standing on a peak in the Smokey Mountains, wondering at the insurmountable beauty of our world?
Throughout my life, being Catholic kept my feet planted on the ground. It gave me a place for peace and reflection, somewhere to confess my grievances and ask for guidance. My belief in the Bible inspired a belief in myself that I can go farther, get stronger and become smarter.
There is power in believing in something greater than yourself, in something you simply cannot see. I choose to believe that in this great big world with thousands of languages and governments and social constructs, humans have a natural inclination for unity, kindness and connection.
These are the lessons the Catholic church has gifted me. I don’t believe in the rules founded on hatred, oppression and greed — they have nothing to do with my personal faith.
My interpretation of Catholicism has nothing to do with shunning gay people or denouncing premarital sex. I don’t find comfort in dismissing other belief systems or promoting Christian nationalism. When I am faced with conflict or sin, I do not naturally gravitate towards marking people as “good” or “evil.”
During Mass at my hometown church, I always glance up at the ceiling. Instead of a spire, the church’s tallest point is a stained glass skylight. Square shaped and light orange in color, it depicts several birds surrounded by an open-ended net. They are flying upwards, out of the net’s enclosure and towards the open sky.
For years, I stared at the skylight in wonder. What did it mean? Do the birds represent the dead, or God’s critics? Is the net a symbol for the devil, or doubt? Or is the net merely a guide to heaven? Are the birds escaping towards heaven, or liberation, or true belief?
Maybe these meanings are synonymous — maybe there is no true answer.
Perhaps this is what being Catholic means: accepting that one true interpretation of the Bible isn’t possible. We can build our own society, invent rules and condemn groups of people based on what Catholic institutions deem right and wrong, and yet fail to be faithful Catholics.
I continue to follow Catholicism, not out of fear or perceived superiority, but belief. I believe that the church has flaws, which have caused irreversible damage to both the faithful and unfaithful. I also believe there is room for evolution and discussion about what’s been haunting Catholicism in recent decades.
At the root of my Catholic faith, I look toward what Jesus stood for and the overarching messages conveyed through the actions of saints. I’ve found kindness, redemption and community to be the defining pillars of my faith, and I choose to live my life accordingly.
I am not ashamed of being Catholic, and I’m not overtly proud of it, either. It is simply the way I choose to live. How I practice religion is no more right or wrong than any other Catholic or person of any other religion.
Maybe that’s something Catholic culture got right. Your relationship with Jesus is between you and Jesus. Everything else — the judgment, the rules, the politics — it’s all, forgive me, bullshit. Perhaps more people should be moving in silence, not out of secrecy or conformity, but reflection and introspection. Perhaps there’s some value and opportunity in that. Perhaps that’s our path to salvation.
Vanessa Norris is a second-year journalism student at the University of Florida. She is an online writer for Rowdy Magazine and loves all things books, movies, politics and pop culture. Her top catholic-girl movie recommendations are Lady Bird, Conclave and The Sound of Music.
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