The Cock Crows

Anne Rice has quit Catholicism and Christianity in general to “follow Christ.” She famously rejoined the Church of Peter and wrote a book about it, Called Out of Darkness, and then went on to write a series of novels about Jesus, after gaining great fame as an author of spicy, internationally best-selling vampire novels. The detail I most like about this story is the Palinish fact that she made this announcement via her Facebook page. Because “Jesus” is one of her “friends”? I’m “friends” with Jeanne d’Arc and the late Corita Kent, so maybe. But why is Rice’s quitting news, exactly? Isn’t quitting what Catholics do all the time?

I sure do. I denounce and then rejoin the Catholic Church frequently. Sometimes on the same day. Sometimes in the same breath. Sometimes while I am actually sitting in Mass, I’m thinking to God, Why? Why would you do this to us? “This,” meaning: inflicting Catholicism upon the world. I would venture to say that part of being a Catholic is not being a Catholic. Ever since the cock crowed at St. Peter, rejecting Christ has been as much a part of Catholicism as tasteless “bread.”

This might just be my programming talking, but it seems to be that you can’t ever really quit being a Catholic, even if you are doing so so you can “follow Christ.” Hey Anne! A lot of people tried just that. They are called Protestants, and we know what happened to them. A one-woman Jesus People minibus of the mind? Sounds great. Quit acting like you’re the first person ever to have thought, This place just isn’t Jesusy enough for me, and frankly, a lot of it is just totally unJesusrelated! Welcome to the One True Church. A lot of Catholicism, frankly, has nothing at all to do with Jesus, which is why some Christians regard us as no better than witches or black metal fans waving the “devil horn” hands at a Gorgoroth concert. But hey, we’ve got the Keys.

Rice is peeved at some of her fellow Christians and their condemnation of some of her most cherished ideals—gayness, feminism, science, Democrats, etc. I sympathize with Rice’s struggle. I wonder all the time: Am I really a Catholic, given most of my views? Should I quit for good? Maybe I should just be a Unitarian after all! But where’s the fun in hanging out only with people who are exactly like you, anyway? Don’t we have room for differing points of view in the Mystical Body?

Look, I understand how “recent events”—ahem—might cause anyone to hand in their walking papers. Droves of people all over the world are doing just that because if you are a baptized Catholic, your name is still counted in the figures. People who are P.O.’d about Holy Mother Church’s complicity in the global rape of children are filling out convenient online forms and getting themselves counted out, officially. I have been tempted to do so myself.

But too many people lately seem to have forgotten the spookily great and possibly “cool” parts of Catholicism. I’m a big fan of saints, miracles and devotions. My late-night reading tends towards such subjects as incorruptible corpses and ex-nuns whose struggles seem to mirror my own. I own (and enjoy) many volumes of Lives of the Saints, who tend to meet their ends in rather unfortunate ways, but joyfully. I stumbled upon a copy of The Secret of the Rosary at a church library sale, and by the end of the book I was thinking, St. Louis de Montfort, you’ve made a believer out of this lady. I’ve become a card-carrying member of the Confraternity of the Rosary; I wear a sparkly Miraculous Medal; I carry (and use) a custom-made rosary in my purse.

I’ve been to church more in the past year than I have since leaving for college. I’m not just taking Pascal’s gamble—well, not solely. The church’s recent troubles (along with my own) actually seem to draw me closer. I suppose I like losing propositions. I root for underdogs, usher live insects outside, snatch mice from the jaws of my cats and set them free.

I suppose I have had the most Catholic of experiences in the past two years: that of great suffering bringing me great rewards, and a great change of spirit. I’m still not the biggest fan of Jesus, since I think his game was rigged. In the world of “dying for” I am more touched by self-immolating purely-mortal war protesters, like the Quaker teacher Norman Morrison, who burned himself alive on the lawn on the Pentagon in protest of the Vietnam War.

I still hate the music. Perhaps it’s just Stockholm Syndrome. But I think you’re supposed to love your captor in that case, and I can’t really say that I love being a Catholic. It’s just that nothing else seems to suffice. I will say that early-morning weekday Masses are quite to my liking. There’s a silent acknowledgment amongst the odd group assembled that we’re a people who know that life is hard, that death awaits us all, and that we need all the Help we can get.

It seems odd to me to be talking someone else into staying, but: Anne, I think you’re missing a great opportunity here. Quitting is the easier option. Go in the direction of discomfort, and see what happens. If everyone leaves, one of the biggest “we” situations on the planet will have diminished, and maybe along with it, humanity. But you’ll probably be back, anyway. Catholicism, to quote the terrible band Chicago, is a “hard habit to break.”