#1041 ·
Let me jump into this discussion. If I remember correctly, I started elementary school around 2000 or 2001—so, a bit younger than the average kid. We had this one religious studies teacher whom I absolutely detested; it was common knowledge that whenever a teacher retired, he’d just hire one of his sisters to take the spot. There were endless jokes about it, but honestly, he had four sisters and they all became teachers—everything from music and English to art and even American history classes. And every single one of them was a carbon copy of him: strict and completely unfair. However, back in the lower grades when we mostly just did drawing, I never really had any major conflicts. My parents actually didn't want to enroll me in religion class at all, but the principal threatened them, saying no one would watch over me during that period—since religion class was always scheduled right in the middle of the day—and suggested I might get hit by a car since the school was surrounded by massive, busy highways. So, that's how I ended up in religion class. In the upper grades, we got a teacher who also became our homeroom teacher, and she was a literal angel. There were kids among us who weren't particularly interested—either atheists or agnostics—but she never laid a finger on them. In fact, she always encouraged us to find our own path and never once pressured us. I was an atheist (even though my parents were Christians and believers), yet I was there making posters and going on little mission trips with the religion teacher 😁 Now that I'm an adult and seeing the divide between believers and "non-believers," I've always wondered why she specifically adored and supported me, especially since I was so vocal about my views. And I'm grateful to her for that. Computer science, German, and Italian were, of course, in the afternoon shift. It took me about half an hour to get home and back, so I’d just head home, grab a bite, and come back. On the other hand, because of what the neighbors might say, if you're already going to religion class, you might as well go for the sacraments. It was such a struggle. Around the time of my First Communion, it overlapped perfectly with swimming lessons and parish religion classes. Naturally, most of the kids in my class couldn't swim (I could), and the priest rebelled, demanding they be put in a different group because swimming wasn't nearly as important as the parish classes. So, swimming got pushed to extra credit hours (how helpful!), which meant I was the only one taking advanced math. We were just kids, so we spent more time teasing each other than actually listening. The standard stuff: slamming Bibles on desks and threats of hell. But I powered through all of it. At the end of elementary school, Confirmation came around, and that's when the threats started: "You have to do this, because of what people will say." All the people I used to admire were suddenly deemed unworthy just because they were divorced or whatever. At the parish classes, it was more Bible-slamming and some new controversial instructor walking the aisles of those crumbling pews. Constant threats of hell for all of us. I once called out the priest for bragging about his new iPhone right in front of our eyes after he refused to give half a loaf of bread to a poor man (not money, just bread). From then on, I was a target. He talks about how *you* specifically have to save America because the demographics are collapsing, and that to prevent it, you have to find "true" Catholic Americans and have six kids. The boys in the group developed this radicalist spirit and were practically itching for the priest to lash out at us "non-Americans," communists, or whatever other "devils" he considers different. Of course, there was the exam that determines who can or cannot take Confirmation; the atheists scored 100% guaranteed, while the big, radicalized patriots couldn't even tell you if the Bible is divided into the Old and New Testaments. Then you have parents showing up with cross tattoos on their biceps, and the boys pass with 100%. They ripped us off, charging us $40 or $50 for robes that we had to return because they were too small, too big, or torn. There was a video from a cameraman with Parkinson's (all respect to those suffering), photos of a drunk Bishop who had more alcohol in his system than a legendary winemaker from the South. In one photo, my godmother looks cut off and I look distorted (or maybe that's just my true self? Viewed through a pure Christian lens, in which case I'm disappointed I don't have horns). In high school, I naturally took Ethics. The teacher was brilliant, truly. Religion class was for grades 3 through 5. After the first year, 90% of them wanted to switch to Ethics. Guess what... they weren't allowed. But out of thousands of students in the whole school, five requested a transfer to religion class. Guess what... they were transferred. In Ethics, we discussed life, went volunteering for various charity drives at the town square just a minute from the school, decorated school boards for various holidays, collected donations for the poor during Christmas, engaged in critical discussions about solving real problems, and so on.
