I Must Confess

Or: The Saddest Peter Pan Song

I’m reviewing a book about Opus Dei and holy god. If you’re not familiar, Opus Dei is a shady, culty society within the Catholic Church. They were portrayed less cartoonishly than you might think as the shadowy, murdery cabal in “The DaVinci Code.”

I’m only a couple chapters in, but this book is great. I know every reviewer will reference The Big Short because it was written by a financial reporter who stumbled across the conspiracy while investigating a bank failure, but I want to ring that bell anyway.

The prose crackles, but it doesn’t have to because the story is fucking bonkers.

A few week’s ago, I wrote about the move to canonize some schmuck (Monsignor Joseph Buh) from the Midwest and joked about the process.

In case you missed the story, one of the checkboxes for becoming a saint is whether you have a following, people who pray to you for intercession. That is, the Church wants to make sure that if a holy man started a cult, or if a cult grew up around a holy man’s reputation, it stayed a Catholic cult.

As it turned out, my sarcastic take on the sainthood process is precisely how Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá earned his sainthood. It was either let this rich and powerful cult split off from the church or make their leader a saint.

Many of the most awful, vicious parts of Catholic social conservatism are funded by Opus Dei, which has a Spectre-level of infiltration at all levels of government in countries where being Catholic is legal. This book reads like a spy novel.

I won’t take you through the whole thing here (I’ll do that here), but I read something that made me want to share a story about my own experience with confession and the church.

Confession (for those who might not know) is a bizarre Catholic rite. You’ve probably seen it on TV, a person goes into a little box, says “Bless me father, for I have sinned” and confesses whatever. What you might not know is that Catholics start confessing in the second grade.

You see, you can’t have Communion (which you’re supposed to get at least every Sunday, though it’s available daily) with a dirty soul. I’ve written before about my grandmother, how she didn’t go to communion or confession for several decades because her soul was filthy from marrying a Lutheran.

So before you can take Communion for the first time in the second grade, you take the sacrament of Penance, that is, you learn to go to confession. Let’s say for a second that rape isn’t endemic to the practice of Catholicism. Or that the relegation of women to birthing vessels isn’t as bad as the Femenazis would make out. Let’s just talk about the idea of locking a seven-year-old in a dark room and making them tell a disembodied voice everything they’ve done wrong since the last time they were in the box.

I’m reminded of my second-grade teacher broaching the subject of impure thoughts to a class of six- and seven-year-olds, defining it as thinking about doing things you’re not supposed to do.

I can’t tell you the last time I went to confession. I don’t believe I’ve ever used the words “impure thoughts” unironically and aloud, though.

What I wanted to tell you about was the twist they introduced in the late 1970s (I don’t know if they still do it), where the priest wasn’t in the box. He was in the room with you. The room was lit (a small blessing) and you and the priest were supposed to just have a chat about your spiritual failings.

The idea was to make Confession more like counseling. We were told (both in sermons and school) that confession wasn’t about presenting a “laundry list.” One of our priests (a functional alcoholic who I always thought was just mean), had a heavy German accent, and I remember him chiding, “I lied to my mother six times, what does that mean?”

In retrospect, what I believe they were trying to get at is the moral struggle we all face when the stupid things god wants (chastity, heterosexuality, obedience to strange, unmarried men), conflict with our daily desires (to be happy and be ourselves). But how drunk with power must you be to believe that you can lock a child in a room and have a natural conversation about morals with them? Confession is compulsory. No one in the history of man has had a satisfying, wide-ranging compulsory conversation about morals.

As early as the 1950s, Opus Dei started this practice. The only difference was they did it outside of an “actual” confession. Instead, lay followers (and novices) would be invited to regular sit-downs where they would discuss their moral hopes and failings. The Opus Dei member would make copious notes afterward for future blackmailing purposes (financial extortion is their main thing).

It made me wonder whether it was from that practice that the open-room confession sprung, whether we were being conditioned to talk about our moral struggles outside of the confessional. It’s completely possible, but Christ, how out of touch with your own childhood must you be if you think you’re going to bond with a seven-year-old over the moral disposition of a white lie?

I Won’t Grow Up

My grandmother was adamant that she would never relive her childhood again, given the option. She said people remember not having to pay bills but forget how powerless they were, how completely at the mercy of grownups. I think of childhood as all freedom and no autonomy.

It’s something I’ve meditated on since I was little. I remember the rage and impotence of childhood much better than I remember the carefree days. I guess that’s the way of it, though.

Having that insight early from my grandmother, I’ve become very sensitive to how often grownups are out of touch with their own childhood. It explains why so many people seem to believe kids are better off learning the hard lessons early, I guess, but there’s also an increasingly fascistic element to rule-making where children are involved.

I spoke with a funeral director not too long ago who was talking about that culture. In many generational funeral homes, there’s still a workhouse vibe, a “my daddy whipped me and I turned out all right” attitude that sees inexperience as a punishable offense. He wasn’t a one-off. It’s a common theme.

It’s worth noting the largest number of people in human history are deciding not to stay in the family funeral business. Everyone says it’s because it’s too hard to make a living, but one wonders if people my age and younger just can’t cope with an 1895 approach to human resources. Or, worse, the expectation that they continue it.

When I used to cover school board meetings and hear the brain-numbing, soul-destroying attitude these “volunteer board members” had toward children, I marveled at how out of touch they were with their childhood. After observing this trend in funeral service it occurred to me that might be the case instead. Maybe bitter old people are angry that it’s not as shitty to be a child as it used to be, that today’s kids have it too easy.

Either way, there’s no worse self-punishment than completely losing all sense and empathy for what it’s like to be a kid, to be subjected to the kind of asinine rules very few adults would stand for.

It reminds me of the song, “I Won’t Grow Up” from the musical Peter Pan. It’s an indictment of adults who like being grownups, (here’s a lyric: And if it means I must prepare/to shoulder burdens with a worried air/I’ll never grow up). That’s not the line that gets me, though. The line I return to and that is most likely to get me emotional is, “‘Cause growing up is awfuler/than all the awful things that ever were.”

Grownups have so much autonomy they don’t use, so much access to fun they completely eschew, so many stupid rules and mores they follow because it’s just easier. Adulthood shouldn’t be a disappointment to your childhood self, neither should it be a labor of self-importance. If you’re not mostly having fun, you might need a reminder that, as the adult, you have a say in when it’s playtime, bedtime, and nap time.

I think of those priests, man-children really, sitting across from second and third graders trying to connect, to put them at ease. It’s as if they forgot what it’s like to be questioned one-on-one by an adult. In situations like that, all a kid wants is for it to be over, to go back to playing with their friends. To ignore that fact in service of teaching the child get used to how shitty life can get? There really isn’t anything awfuler.

Keep the Faith,

Tony

Post Script

Although I mentioned it above, let me be more explicit. I’m sharing my notes on the Opus Dei book in the chat, in case you want to follow along. When I write my review, I’ll have it here.

Also, I’ve been goofing around on Instagram and YouTube for a while now with “The best sentence I’ve written today, so far.” You can follow my Instagram here or YouTube here.

New Stuff

You’ll get a new email from me on Sunday marked “Object History.” I’ve mentioned my fascination with looking at the junk in “antique” stores before, but I’ve finally started writing about it. Specifically, I’m trying to run down facts and people associated with the junk I’ve seen or bought. It’s a fun project I’ll be writing in pieces. This first chunk will be published over three or four weeks depending upon whether I get the interviews I need.

I’m also launching the Return to Sender podcast for real in January. This also will be an anthology-type show with the first chunk covering the iron mines in Minnesota. I’m already editing that and it should be good.

As always, I want to recommend my other podcasts, all linked below.

Here’s an interview with Peter Quakenbush, a biologist who’s trying to start a forest conservation cemetery, which is essentially a cemetery that doesn’t allow headstones, embalming, or a non-biodegradable casket (also, they’re caskets, not coffins).

This is my weekly funeral news show (really).

I recite an awful poem at the end of the Day Drinking on Delmarva out later today, if you want to take a listen to that. I might cut it out and post it next week.

I hope you have a great Halloween!

TR