by B.J. on 2/12/2004 07:16:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

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Why I Hate Catholic Rituals

What do you believe in, biotch (in Dave Chappelle get "rich beech" tone announcing his production company) ?

God ? Allah ? Spirits ? Yourself ?

A few weeks ago I sauntered onto some Zen Buddhist meditation. It's a religion geared towards spirituality. Spirituality meaning you "finding yourself" like Nemo (actually like Dori and Merlin or whatever his name is, but that's besides the point). It's a religion that encourages participation.

Now here's what this meditation wasn't. This meditation wasn't the long humdrum one in a gassed up piece of architecture called a church with 500 other people. It wasn't the one where some tall balding jackarses named Russ sit in front of me and block my damn view. It isn't the religion in which the priest carries out rituals that might have meant something in the ancient past. It ain't Catholicism.

Catholic rituals just bore me to tears and always have me looking around for something fun to do during it. For serious it does, I hate it. But wait, why do I hate these rituals ?

Cause none of them have meaning to me. I still don't know what these rituals mean from a purely historical point of view despite 12 years at Catholic schools. There's no story. We just kind of engage in the receiving of the bread because Jebus died for us. There's no connection to me, I get lost. Helping to foster this lack of connection is a big varied crowd a priest needs to preach to. And he has in mind the old white foggies in the front.

In contrast, it seems that small-scale religions, like the Huichol "Indian" religion in Mexico and the Voodoo religion out of Haiti are much more successful in terms of getting someone to spirituality. Folks who engage in the rituals for those religions "find themselves." They know exactly what everything means because religion is part of their heritage and history. Their religions are interwoven with their heritage very strongly. However part of the reason religion is interwoven with their heritage could be that they are predominantly homogeneic. In these homogenic societies, religion is

Catholicism would find it hardpressed to interweave the many different heritages it has into one. I am in the United States as a Filipino kid with some Spanish blood somewhat forced upon a religion that has its roots in Rome out of admiration for a Jew. They go by rituals from quite a long while ago without anyone except for the priest really knowing what was meant by it other than Jesus getting nailed to a cross and dying for our sins. What ? Did his 12 friends got drunk off red wine to wash away their misery ? I dunno, *LoLz*, because I haven't focused on it.

I haven't focused on it because religion has been something seperate from the rest of my life, something I did on Sundays and in school which is not to imply that if it did become thrust in my face like a spikestrip and it was already pretty shoved in my face going to Catholic schools, that I would readily accept it. While some people can find solace in it, there is just no real connection to me at the moment.

(And BTW I don't want to be atheistic because the supernatural has not been disproven. That's where "logic" and "science" fall miserably short of its hype today and no different to religion. Err. . .this blurb down here will turn into another post some day)

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