Greetings, bonjour, whatt’s happening? Quick little heads up, I’m no longer including the long written introductions here, it’s taking too long and it’s probably not that interesting. However, I do introduce it on the podcast version, hopefully this streamlines it a bit more. Usual support links at the bottom, large up. Paul
On the Good Catholics
‘‘Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows – the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a forth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues – and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready at hand.’
Book 6 – 48
I was raised a Catholic, in a church going catholic family, went to catholic schools, so therefore by default; grew up in a catholic community. The majority of people I knew, for probably the first ten to fifteen years of my life, would have been Catholic. My upbringing was never that strict, not in the stereo-typical way, and my school was probably quite progressive for a Catholic school. If anything, both the schools and the church I went to were a bit half-arsed, like the current Man United team – not the force they once were, perhaps resting on once mighty laurels; but never the less, it was a catholic upbringing.
I read somewhere once there’s over 7 million Catholics in the UK, the majority of which, at some point or other, are children of immigrants. The Catholicism in my family comes from my Granny, who was Irish by way of her mother (her Dad was English) but she lived in the south of Ireland as a young girl with my Auntie, before coming to England where she grew up. Though predominately white, most of the kids at my school had parents or grandparents from somewhere outside of England.
Despite being mainly around other Catholics, there were a couple of times as a kid, where I can remember a few sly comments made about being us being Catholics. Growing up in the south-east of England, this of course was nothing compared to what my parents would have gone through, in a different era, both having family from Glasgow and Belfast; both Protestant and Catholic. One of these little moments, was in the Cub Scouts, when some twat who was one of the helpers, must’ve been talking about church to me and brother. He was laughing at us being Catholic, and was going on about ‘all that ritualistic nonsense’ which I didn’t understand the meaning of at the time, I just remember feeling a bit hurt, confused and embarrassed; but not sure why. A minor thing of course, but perhaps the first time I became aware of some kind anti-Catholic sentiment.
The other times was when I was in Marine Cadets, on those big parade-days when it became painfully obvious who the catholic kids were. At some point everyone had to say the Our Father, and being Royal Navy, British Armed Forces and all that, they were Church of England services, so they always said that extra line at the end of the prayer which Catholics didn’t say. I didn’t know about this line, or I’d being on auto-pilot and forget it, and thinking we’d got to the end of the old Lord’s prayer, I’d give it a big old ‘Amen’ but these pricks were still going! With some thy is the kingdom bollox! I’d be thinking, Where did this extra line come from?! What happened to brevity?! Jesus-wept. See what I done there?
And of course, I have lots of siblings. I’m one of 7 kids. Probably by the age of 12, I would’ve lost count of the amount people, when hearing of my big family, would make some wise-crack about jonnies or ‘was there nothing on the telly.’ My parents like to make love, I fully respect that. Also, on that note, but a side-note in all of this – I remember being confused as a child, as a big message being pumped out by society at the time, it seemed, by way of Grange Hill and posters at the doctors surgery etc (but obviously not my school, though half-arsed it was still catholic) was promoting the use contraceptives and the idea of family-planning. So when I once asked my mum if I was planned, and she said no, you just came along, I was thinking do I need to get on the blower to Esther Ranson?
By the time I’d grown up and left home (and already gone through a few rebellious years where I refused to go to church and told everyone I’d turned my back on it all) the circle of people I knew would’ve changed quite a lot.
I lived in Brighton for a couple of years in my early twenties (where I was trying to do the music thing) then moved up to London, and eventually found myself, by happy accident, working in the arts. The amount of catholic people I knew, and other practising religious people in general, became less and less.
Moving about in these circles, with a lot of very liberal, agnostic people, it wasn’t that rare to encounter avowed atheists and occasionally confrontational pricks, who would want to start slagging the church off as soon as they became aware I was Catholic; as if by magic, right there and then, I was the living embodiment of the Vatican and the clergy, and the default defender of all the many misdemeanours, whilst casually holding my Lourdes holy-water bottle, in the shape of Our Lady, flinging it about, blessing everyone; when all I probably wanted was a cup of tea and a Twix from the venue café, wherever it was I was working.
To be fair to them, a lot of these people would’ve grown up in the church themselves, gone to catholic schools etc and of course there was no shortage of scandals, and possibly bad personal experiences, so some would’ve had genuine reasons for their resentment. I can sympathise why a person would turn their back on it; I did, for a good few years. Didn’t work out for me, though.
The ones who really wound-me-up, were the types who’d make these sweeping generalisations, not just about the church, the religion, but more importantly, its devotees, whilst seemingly knowing very little about it, other than a few well-worn cliches about pedo-priests and no the-rubber-embargo.
In the funded-arty-hyper-liberal-circles I was rolling in, slagging off the Catholic Church was a free-hit. It seemed as if it could give a person the vizard of being edgy, or intelligent, or rebellious even. You weren’t likely to find many people who would want to defend it; not in those places, anyway. Sometimes I’d get a bit narked-off and at least try and provide a bit of context, nuance, and actual lived-experience (a phrase that by now, of course, is probably used by those very same people, to justify their annoyance at some big-injustice they want to shout-to the world about)
Some of these people were committed atheists, some of them were lapsed Catholics, some of them agnostic and some of them were just bellends with big-mouths and not-a-lot of depth underneath the mega-tropes. Seemingly they enjoyed referencing the nonce-scandals and going on to make scathing remarks about the rest of the faith, with very little regard for anyone present, who may still be into it. I never heard them talk about any other Chrisitan denominations, or other religions for that matter (all of which probably have their scandals) apart from the odd generalisation about organised-religion being the cause of all wars or whatever; though they all seemed to like Buddhism. As I said, free hit.
I was no defender of the church, especially the scandals, and there were enough of those. In fact, some years before my time, there was a local priest who was embroiled in some abuse case. I read somewhere the church hid him away for years, before the story came out; why would I want to defend that?! However, when someone would start going off on one, whilst not really knowing what they were talking about, just armed with stereotypes and not a lot else, having grown up in it, aside from pissing me off, it would have this side-effect of making me reflect on my own experiences of it. Sometimes I’d retort, most of the times I’d just move on, get my tea, Twix, dip, sip then scarper; as I doubt they were ever interested in having their minds changed, or at least hearing an alternative view. (For the record, I’ve met plenty of Catholic people, and those of other faiths, who are equally narrow-minded and stubborn, but we’re not talking about them today)
When I’d calm down, and actually think about growing up as in this religion, there was always one thing that comes to mind, when thinking about it all: not the Pope, the Vatican, the Bishops, the rituals, the bible, the guilt-stories, the nonce-stories, confessions, communion, transubstantiation, the standard-issue Holy-Water-from Lourdes; no, it’s always the people who made up the parish of English Martyrs, Horley, and the other neighbouring churches and associated schools in Crawley; in other words, the local church community I grew up in. That’s what always comes to mind.
In that community, were some of the most selfless, giving, kindest and caring people I have ever come across in my forty years on this planet; and that includes a few priests too. People that looked out for each other, and others too, inside and outside of the church community.
There were people who probably didn’t have much themselves but would drop-off bags of clothes and food to other families they knew who were struggling (my family benefited from this, many times - I’ll never shake off those memories of sheer joy and excitement, when a bag of clothes would get dropped off on the doorstep, from a family with older kids, and then began the squabbles with my siblings about who got what.)
When we didn’t have a car, there was often someone from the church, pulling over in the street and giving us a lift home when mum had a weeks worth of shopping, even if it was going out of their way. I remember my late Godmother’s husband, driving all us kids the 100 odd miles down to Dover a few times when my nan died, sat through the while funeral and wake (that was also the first time I ever tasted beer) he didn’t bat an eyelid. Or one of the Eucharistic Ministers putting money in mums’ hand to help with the train fares back and forth to Kent, when Nan was sick. Fr Spellman taking the whole parish down to Littlehampton for the day; every year, out of his own pocket; those were great times. And these are just a few examples; there are tons more.
I could probably write a book on the amount of good people I knew, growing up in the church; who were great people. Were there a few wrong’uns? There probably was. Were there a few bellends? There probably was; were some of them a bit nosey and annoying? Definitely, but they paled in significance to the good ones.
I’ve met plenty of good people outside of the church, of course they exist, it’s just whenever I actually think about it, all those old faces all pop into my mind. It’s important to me that I do remember them and try and emulate their great examples of humility and charity (just without the annoying bits).
When people so casually coat the church off, it doesn’t bother me nearly much as it used too; though clearly it still has some effect, as I wouldn’t be writing this. If anything, I feel sorry for them for being so wilfully ignorant about things which are far more complex that just muggy aspersion cast-outs; even if they if they think it makes them look good. The irony often being, that they have a religious-like zeal in their condemnations; let him without sin cast the first stone and all that.
I feel blessed (no pun intended) that I had these kind-hearted people in my life, outside of my own family, who often gave so much and expected nothing in return. I feel like I want to at least try and do all those good people a bit of justice, in my own little way; so I’ll keep fighting the good fight and large them up where I can, and try and emulate them, or at the very least, do like Marcus says and think of them when I’m castigating the world around me. Now, where’s that Twix? I fancy a cup of tea.
Romeo & Julliet@ Polka Theatre
https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/
BUY-ME-A-LAGER
THE SUBURBAN BOOK
My 1st book collection of stories and poems
Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy
2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray
https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy
On the Good Catholics