I was raised Catholic and was a well-behaved, obedient child. Being fairly intelligent and questioning - my mom and some of my teachers told me I always asked too many questions - I took umbrage nearly every Sunday during our priest's sermons where in the end, the parable told of a 'sinner' who did something bad, (inference was that it was us) and we needed to pray hard and ask for forgiveness because WE WERE SINNERS! And hope God would forgive us.
The prayer we had to repeat often was "I am not worthy, only say the word and my soul shall be healed..." This always upset me. Why was I not worthy?
The 'original sin' we were told we were born with was again maddening. I remember thinking that this had to be wrong and that God would not make this kind of unfair assumption about all his worshippers who had not done 'the thing' whatever it was, but we should still be punished for it.
I remember thinking, "I'm a good child. I am not a sinner! Why do you keep saying that to me?"
Eventually, when I was old enough I left the church when it became clear they were covering up their involvement in pedophilia.
I was raised Catholic and was a well-behaved, obedient child. Being fairly intelligent and questioning - my mom and some of my teachers told me I always asked too many questions - I took umbrage nearly every Sunday during our priest's sermons where in the end, the parable told of a 'sinner' who did something bad, (inference was that it was us) and we needed to pray hard and ask for forgiveness because WE WERE SINNERS! And hope God would forgive us.
The prayer we had to repeat often was "I am not worthy, only say the word and my soul shall be healed..." This always upset me. Why was I not worthy?
The 'original sin' we were told we were born with was again maddening. I remember thinking that this had to be wrong and that God would not make this kind of unfair assumption about all his worshippers who had not done 'the thing' whatever it was, but we should still be punished for it.
I remember thinking, "I'm a good child. I am not a sinner! Why do you keep saying that to me?"
Eventually, when I was old enough I left the church when it became clear they were covering up their involvement in pedophilia.