The social circle around me while growing up was very much Catholic. Christmas and Easter were spent with family who came with extensive celebrations and gifts, I was baptized and have a loving relationship with my godparents, and two of my best friends attend church regularly. Still, I never really considered myself religious due to my doubts concerning the existence of God and me disagreeing with the Church’s stance on some social issues.
I didn’t continue following the religion while growing up, meaning that I didn’t have a Confirmation ceremony or ever attended Sunday Mass, and I doubt I can name more than three bible stories or Disciples of Christ. For these reasons, at eighteen years of age, I didn’t consider myself Catholic or religious at all, as compared to those surrounding me I really wasn’t.
However, when I left home to go to university in another country I realized that the Catholic religion had a much bigger influence than I imagined.
When the end of the year came around, I realised that I couldn’t say “Merry Christmas” to people as they left for home because most of them didn’t celebrate Christmas at all, and I even found myself explaining to someone what it meant to have a godparent, something that had been as common to me and most around me growing up as an uncle or grandmother.
In my psychology class, when raising children came up I was part of the group that said they wanted to baptise their children, while the majority of the class either didn’t want any religious ceremonies or wanted those belonging to other religions. My point is, by being in a social circle that wasn’t mostly Catholic, I was able to see the influence this religion has on my life, and to accept this. Even though I still have my doubts about certain parts of this faith, I can’t ignore the part it plays in my life, even if just culturally.