Yellow and white

I had forgotten the part the Catholic church played in the early years of my life until I watched some of the coverage of the Pope’s visit to the UK. The last time I attended a mass it was a grand affair, a requiem mass for someone I knew, but I did it out of politeness. I am surprised to find that I can still remember the words of the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary”. Two faded religious pictures, a collection of prayer cards, a rosary and the cross that my Portuguese grandmother gave me are the few things I have left to indicate that I was, and as far as the Vatican is concerned still am, a Catholic.

It is hard to avoid being one if you are at all Portuguese. In the past the church dominated the country and its people, especially the poor of whom there were a great many. When I asked why my aunt had never learned to read my mother said it was because she was too busy doing jobs for the priest. Make of that what you will.

In the last few years the British branch of Vatican Inc. has been sustained by the arrival of Polish believers but before then it was the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Irish who filled the gaps. Catholic rituals such as a First Communion are an excuse for a big party in these countries, a chance to show off. My mother couldn’t quite believe it when she saw that little girls were wearing net curtains as veils for the occasion - she wasn’t sending me out looking like that (I was probably the only little girl at our church who wore a child sized mantilla to mass on Sundays). A ridiculous amount of money was spent on a dress from Portugal, with lots of embroidery and beading, and I stood out from everyone else looking like a mini bride. It was the closest my mother has ever come to seeing me in a wedding dress and she certainly made the most of it. Imagine her relief when she found that the same dress would do for my confirmation (sans veil thank goodness), carried out at a time when little Catholics were processed like sausages in the belief that these ceremonies would keep us in the church.

There wasn’t much point in my case. By the time I was thirteen and attending a Catholic secondary school I was already brave enough to say out loud that I didn’t believe in it. Even being confirmed by Cardinal Hume himself at the grand London Oratory had made no difference. The church had lost me. Having an outspoken Protestant father didn’t help but my experience of Catholicism was for the most part a dark and oppressive one. Father Ted didn’t come into it.

The ritual I dreaded most was Confession. I was a well behaved child and could never think of anything to say. I didn’t enjoy waiting for my turn in the dark box, conscious of the priest just visible through the grille. One afternoon when I was about eight I refused to go and was dragged to church by my mother. I ended up making my Confession on my knees in front of a priest and my outraged parent. Very Edna O’Brien. Before this story confirms the stereotype of a child abuser I should point out that he was probably as embarrassed as I was. I doubt whether anything had prepared him for this, unmarried with no children of his own, living a relatively sheltered life. The villain of the piece was actually my mother who required my absolute humiliation. However the priest need not have colluded with her and I doubt whether she would have got away with it today.

This Papal visit probably had the same impact on Catholic schools this time around that it had on mine in 1982. Personally I was more concerned about what was happening in the Falklands. By this time I was one of a group of girls who contrived to avoid involvement in this or any other religious event and we got away with it because we were reasonably clever. Our A level results counted. Even so we were not the only ones who raised our eyebrows at the sight of a different clique who turned up with yellow and white ribbons in their hair. The ringleader was a recent arrival whose family had converted a few years before. The deputy head mistress was particularly excited and enthusiastic about them. It was all terribly Iris Murdoch. Like all newbies they were really dedicated and involved but one other put them in the shade.

She, along with the rest of her Scottish family, was a member of Opus Dei - Vatican storm troopers. When she discovered that I had a boyfriend she promptly invited me to the OD hostel she was living in while she attended the sixth form at our school. I say “hostel” but this was an elegant Edwardian house near Chelsea Embankment with its own chapel. Most of the others living there were Spanish and probably very well off. Any notion that she had asked me round out of friendship evaporated as one of her fellow tenants explained earnestly and in heavily accented English that she was praying for my soul as my situation had been explained to her. My “friend” then took me off to the chapel where she actually believed I would spend the afternoon helping her polish the altar silver. I’m still not sure whether this was intended as penance or fun. I left fairly quickly after that but not before noticing that the picture of the founder of Opus Dei, Josemaria Escriva, was bigger and more prominent than the one of John Paul II.

Just before I moved in with my partner to our suburban home I bumped into a priest I had known my whole life. I told him that I was moving away and he was polite but clearly shocked that I was going to be living with someone. By this time I hadn’t been to Mass for years. He reminded me that as a little girl I had mended a tear in his jacket, something that came about because my mother had dropped heavy hints about my ability to sew. He seemed very sad. It is men like him that I think of when the issue of child sex abuse is mentioned because they have all, innocent or guilty, been damaged by the failure of the Catholic Church to deal with it honestly and openly. The priests I knew were a very mixed bunch, including at least one eccentric war hero and another younger man who I now realise was an alcoholic. I once saw him cycle past the bus I was on in Fulham Road, red faced and the worse for drink. He was the only one I disliked. Priests and nuns deal regularly with the people our society shuns in a respectful and positive way and for that they deserve respect.

The impression I get is that many of those who could have listened to victims, including priests, lay people and parents, found the whole idea of sexual abuse so repulsive that they pretended it wasn’t happening in the hope it would just go away. Even those who told someone breathed a sigh of relief because having done so they could forget about it. Those who closed their eyes just weren’t brave and unselfish enough to do the right thing.

In my opinion the Vatican took advantage of this failing. An institution that historically wielded enormous political power and influence is now reduced to manipulating the little people who put coins in the collection box. Amongst the many good and helpful Catholics who are involved in education, health care and aid work around the world there are a proportion who have a selfish and damaging need to abuse physically and sexually. The Vatican has a responsibility to weed them out and hand them over to the civil authorities but those who follow Catholic teachings had and continue to have a responsibility to challenge those in the church. If Catholics worldwide had responded to allegations of child abuse in the same way that UK tax payers did to the news of MPs’ expenses, flooding radio phone-ins and newspapers with calls, emails and letters, the Vatican would have had no choice but to put their house in order. If only the bad apples had been tackled with the same ruthlessness exhibited by the Inquisition.

Unfortunately for those who would change it Catholicism holds such a strong appeal for some that it will be around in its present form for a very long time. I’ve got to admit that I find those who were demonstrating about the rights of women and gay people in the church during the Papal visit difficult to understand. Why would anyone want to be a Catholic if they feel this way? I can understand the desire to make the Vatican apologise for homophobic behaviour but I really can‘t work out why a gay man or woman would want to go anywhere near such an institution as a worshipper or priest. I can’t help feeling that it is in part those who continue to long for what they can’t have that keep the juggernaut going.

The issue that really turned me off was the ban on contraception. One afternoon I was out with a school friend when we bumped into a teacher we hadn’t seen for some time. The child she had with her explained the absence and she was speechless with embarrassment when she saw us. A single woman and a convert, she had been kept away from the school by the headmaster while pupils who became pregnant were allowed back. We felt that she was really brave to keep the child and bring it up on her own. It wouldn’t surprise me if she came under pressure to have the child adopted by some worthy Catholic family.

There were some attempts to encourage chastity before marriage including a memorable session with a misguided volunteer who believed she could persuade a group of Sixth Formers that it was worth waiting until we were married before losing it. We sat there fully aware that most of us were on the pill or buying condoms ahead of university. I suppose she was an improvement on a priest. I have always felt that it is unnatural to ask men and women to be celibate but expect them to advise those who are not. Having said that I believe that if being celibate is part of the deal when you are a Catholic priest it’s a bit like having your cake and eating it to be allowed into the priesthood as a married man, something that is on offer to Anglicans.

I have found it impossible to shake off Catholicism completely. Recently it occurred to me that if I came across a dying person who I knew was a Catholic I probably would ask them if they wanted a priest, perhaps even say a prayer with them, because even though I don‘t believe in it myself I recognise that it might be important to them to be able to die in a state of grace. When one of my partner’s relatives was involved in the invasion of Iraq we sent him an Ethiopian silver cross. Had the time been available I would have taken it to a priest to be blessed because that is what most Catholics would have done. An unblessed cross is just a piece of jewellery. I have even been known to light candles for people.

However, I am also an avid reader of horoscopes. I reckon the Vatican storm trooper would have me polishing altar silver from now until Judgement Day to make up for all that astrology. I last heard from her when I received a letter from Rome. I binned it immediately.