Greetings

Well, this is my first post here at Was Blind But Now I See. First I'd like to thank BlondeSense Liz for the opportunity to blog here. I mostly write about politics, media and war over at my main blog Agitprop. I occasionally touch on themes of religion and the culture wars, but this blog will give me a forum to direct all of my religion-themed posts for now on.

I attended twelve years of Catholic school, from first to twelfth grade during the 1980s and 1990s. Catholic schools are mostly filled with lay people and it seems all the nuns have disappeared. I only had one nun which was for sixth grade. But I remember her firecracker style and learned not to mess with an old lady and her yard stick.

I don't really practice my religion anymore and I don't attend Sunday mass. That doesn't mean I don't pray or communicate with God. I just have my own way of doing it and do not like institutional religion. But we'll get into all that personal faith stuff at a later point. My experience with Catholicism entitles me to write a bit about the Church and its deeds and/or misdeeds.

I have nothing against religion in general. My major grievance is when religion is used to support the agendas of ignorance, hatred, oppression and war. We've seen a lot of this nonsense lately as we have a proud fundamentalist Christian president who starts wars because God tells him to. I also have a problem with the Catholic Church as an institution. Not only is it a static dogmatic gentlemen's club, but it has promoted and committed some of the worst atrocities throughout history.

If one were to take Catholicism at face value, you would see an enormous theological tradition which promotes life, peace, brotherhood and social justice. All good stuff right? But the Church as an institution has never properly implemented this philosophy. They get hung up with the totalitarian aspects of the dogma like obedience, piety and guilt.

I guess my goal here is to focus on some of the good aspects of the Church as well as be my usual snarky and anarcho-cynical self when approaching this large topic.

Cheers!