Living Out Loud (25 page)

I remember the sisters running down a hockey field or out on the polished wood of the basketball court, driving or dribbling, their voluminous skirts held up by huge safety pins that they always kept pinned to their bodices. I was amazed to hear from other girls that
athletics
were only for boys; a Catholic schoolgirl learns
sports
, led by a nun.

Above all it seemed to me that the nuns who taught us had their own lives—much more so than my mother, who was parceled out to many others, our family’s community property. I always pictured the sisters, each with a cool white bedroom in the top reaches of their stone house, no rug on the floor, a crucifix over the bed, books on the bureau. One of my most enduring memories is the last day of school each year, when we would fly down the street and they would stand on the steps and wave, waiting until the last child was gone before turning back and readying the classrooms for their long rest. I never saw the nuns during the summer months. I always wondered
if they went swimming, and, if so, what they wore. I imagined this community of capable women gathered at a beach house somewhere, in white habits instead of their workaday black, playing volleyball, batting the ball back and forth over the net, their ankles flashing.

T
he first year I was in Catholic school there were, on the long wall of the convent parlor, portraits of two men in rococo gilt frames. One was an imagined rendering of Jesus Christ, wearing a gold robe. The other was a color photograph of a rather dour man in much more elaborate garments, wearing the sort of austere rimless glasses that would later be affected by rock-and-roll musicians and college students. This was Pope Pius XII, who from his likeness appeared to be stern and unapproachable. We knew that he was the closest thing we had to God on earth at the time.

John Paul II seems to me, in face and in fact, to be a man warmer and more human than that predecessor of his, four popes ago. But that is not why I think of him as a man rather than a near-deity. I have changed since the afternoons I spent in the convent parlor, and so has the faith in which I was raised. I find my religion within my
heart, not within the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church.

When the Pope was here in 1979 and I covered the occasion, I found myself unaccountably moved by his visit despite the fact that I felt his influence in my life was negligible. It is the same way I felt the last time I saw the White House: deeply aware of a long and venerable history of which I am one tiny part, despite the fact that the person who leads the historical tradition at this moment is someone whose deepest beliefs are at odds with my own.

We have had an odd history, the people of my generation. When we were children, sexual mores were one way, and now they are another. National feeling was one way, and now it is another. Sexual politics were one way, and now they are another.

For those of us who grew up Catholic, the change has been similar. When we were young, the convents and seminaries were full. Now it is difficult to find young men and women with religious vocations. The Mass was said in Latin. Now, of course, in this country it is in English. Our lives were filled with a host of rules, regulations, and religious formulas. Most of them are gone. So are many of the parishioners. On Easter in our parish church the priest walked to the altar, looked out over the aisles crammed with people of all ages, and said wryly, “You know, we have this Mass every Sunday.” At Communion, the little children, those too young to receive the sacrament, were called up to the altar rail for the first time in their lives, to be given a cookie in the shape of the Paschal lamb. There was the tragedy: What if they finally had a church that knew how to care for its people, and nobody came?

Many of my friends have fled a Catholicism that, for some of us, no longer exists. It happens to be a Catholicism they see embodied in this Pope and his pronouncements on such matters as birth control, the ordination of women, and homosexuality. It is a Catholicism of “Thou shalt not.” I know it still
exists much below the hierarchy. The last time I wrote a column about being a Catholic, I got lots of hard, mean, judgmental letters from people who said “Oh no, you’re not,” people anxious to exclude rather than include, people who seemed ignorant of the commandment I was taught was the greatest of all. Love one another.

For Catholics of my age, the central event of our maturation was the collection of changes and modifications now generally known as Vatican II. The central figure was John XXIII, who was to our religion what John Kennedy was to our government. That Pope changed our lives, and not just because the rites of the church were now in the language of the schoolyard. It was because what John XXIII seemed to be saying was that the spirit of the law was more important than the letter. That to be kind and considerate was more important than keeping your mantilla on. That to do good was as important as to do penance. It was the Catholicism of “Father, forgive them.” That is the faith in which I have remained. It is one in which the messages of your heart and your conscience take precedence over messages from Rome. Those who still shun the judgmental and authoritarian Catholicism that they are convinced triumphed over the changes of Vatican II are skeptical, particularly now, with a charismatic and deeply intellectual Pope who condemns
in vitro
fertilization and welcomes Kurt Wald-heim. But in a quiet, steady, almost sub rosa way others are following their hearts. Several recent polls show that the vast majority of Catholics believe they can be true to their faith while disagreeing with its earthly leader.

I have thought several times this week of an incident that took place ten years ago. My fiancé and I went to Cana conferences, the sessions that prepare young Catholics for marriage within the church. They were conducted by a priest we both knew well and loved. I was nervous, because we were living together, using birth control, but especially because I was not
sure that I ever wanted to have children, and knew that he would be bound to ask about that. When he did, I could tell by his face that he had seen something click shut in mine. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me put it this way. Have you totally ruled out having children?” Both of us immediately leapt in: Oh, no, Father, no; absolutely not.

He knew my doubt about doing something which is absolutely essential to the spirit of Catholic matrimony. But he knew, too, a little something about the human spirit, and about trying to look beyond people’s words into their hearts. He would have been perfectly justified in asking that question exactly the way it was meant to be asked, and, given the equivocal answer I was likely to give, to refuse to marry us. He could have considered us unfit according to the letter of the law. But according to its spirit he knew we were good people, who would try to be good to others. He knew it, too, on the days he baptized our two children.

   TAKING   
          A           
STAND

I
would like to say that I became a feminist to make the world better for women everywhere, but in truth it was to make the world better for me. This was almost twenty years ago, and altruism was not my strong suit; to paraphrase Rhett Butler, the only cause I believed in was me. Nor was I struck by the rank injustice of sex discrimination. It just seemed like men got all the good stuff.

I grew up in a city run by men, in a church run by men, in a household run by a man. Men had comfortable shoes, a life outside the home, and money in their wallets. Women had children, who are wonderful but not sufficient unto themselves, at least for me. The best job you could get as a woman then involved a lifetime vow of chastity, which was not my thing. I figured either life was going to be considerably different for me than it was for my mother, or I was going to be
angry all the time. I jumped on the bandwagon. I’ve never gotten off.

As I watched the convention of the National Organization for Women on television the other night, I realized my only real political identification has been with womens’ rights. It is the only cause I have ever believed in that has improved the world. Life for many women is not the same as it was when I was young, and I do not believe it will ever be so again. I do not believe that ever again will there be a handful of token women in the graduating class at Harvard Law School. I do not believe that ever again will there be a handful of female New York City police officers.