If you ever read my bio up until 1997, you would have thought that this young man would have mourned the death of John Paul II. In fact, I was hoping for his death and I am glad a man like him is gone. John Paul II certainly had a vision for what he thought Eastern Europe ought to look like and he needs to be commended for achieving his vision, but he was also the reason why this lifelong Catholic left Catholicism for something more tolerant.
Consider my background, I was raised in a poor, but strongly Catholic family. I went to a small (real small) Catholic high school and I liked it. I went to the premire Jesuit univeristy in the United States on a scholarship and I really bought into the Catholic message they were teaching us - men and women for others. Sure, I papered over the way Catholicism treated women, but how many Catholics haven't? I mean, Catholicism is more than the Pope. It was about the people, right?
Then something unexpected hit me - in 1997 I realized I was gay. This was not a big surprise to me since I really knew it all my life, but I used my Catholicism as a shield to hide who I was from myself. I will not get into the reasons why or how this affected me (don't worry nothing bad happened as a result and I am quite happy today), but needless to say my belief and faith in Catholicism was shaken to the core. According to John Paul II, my person was "intrinsically disordered" and my desire for equality, aka gay marriage, was "gravely immoral" and "insidious". Gay and lesbian people were consider a danger to family. Really? How do two gay guys, a dog and our 82 year old Catholic mother add up to an attack on the traditional family? But it does not stop there. Apparently there was just too much acceptance of gay and lesbian people in this world for John Paul II, since it was the position of Catholicism ANY accomodation for gay and lesbian people, say protection from housing discrimination, was just was not right and he favored allowing heterosexual people and government to discriminate against gay and lesbian people.
In 1997, I asked myself why do I want to be part of an organization that thinks I am "disordered" and need to be changed? I am just me...happy and content with who I am and made by God to be the happy, gay boy I am. There is nothing "disordered" with me; this is who I am. I am me. Why does John Paul II think I have to change? Doesn't he see that to deny my self is to deny my humanity, to deny what is divine in me? Why does this one man in Rome want to change me or other people like me? Does he really think he has that much power over me? And where does he think he gets this power from?
Well, he doesn't and he gets this power because Catholics all over the world give it to him by showing up each week. With the perfect advice from my boyfriend, "You need to forget all that Catholic bullshit they told you", I converted to the Episcopalian Church. I figured one person (or even hundreds) cannot change Catholicism - why give my money, my voice and my time to a group that wants to foster intolerance to people like me? Even if I go to a "liberal" Catholic church, I am supporting John Paul II. Just by showing up I say I think what he is doing to gay and lesbian people is just fine. I couldn't do it.
If this diary was all about me, then this would be the end, but my decision to leave Catholicism was not for me. I figured my actions were the only way to show to the millions of gay and lesbian people around the world who stuggle in cultures that are not as open and accepting as this one, that you do not have to put up with the Catholic bullshit. Even if you grew up with it, educated by it and owed it a lot of your character, you could turn you back on it and tell it to "kiss your ass". I don't need to change, but you old, white bastards need to join the 20th century. If we do not vote with our feet, then John Paul II would believe he had the support of his followers.
Don't get me started on how John Paul II has treated women - that could be a diary in itself. Needless to say, Catholicism under John Paul II was not what I thought it was. John Paul II showed me that I did not believe in Catholicism - Catholicism was too intolerant for me to self-identify with it anymore.