I was born on September 11, 1997 in Wichita, Kansas to a Catholic mother and a nondenominational Christian father. Wichita, coincidentally, is home to a very well known Catholic diocese, as well as 120,527 Catholics in 91 parishes, but that wasn’t why my parents decided to put down roots here. My father, a Notre Dame-educated former aerospace engineer, got his first job here and after my parents got married in the gorgeous Basilica of the Sacred Heart, they decided to move for his work, meanwhile my mom went to graduate school at Wichita State University.
As the oldest, I am the self-professed “guinea pig” of the family, meaning I test every new parenting situation. I knew that my father did not want me to go to Catholic schools, but he compromised and let my mom raise me and any other future kids in the Catholic faith as long as we went to the best public schools, at the time, that are right near our house. I began kindergarten at Vermillion Primary School and about the same time, my mom began taking me to Mass with her and we would all attend my dad’s church after as a family.
As time went on and as I got older, my dad began to discuss religion more and more with me as I could finally understand it enough to debate with him about it. One day a few years back, I woke up and got ready for Mass with my mom and two younger brothers and walked into the kitchen to find my dad dressed and ready to go to Mass with us. I was ecstatic and went with the flow instead of asking too many questions. My dad finally beginning to attend Mass with the rest of my family, despite his differing beliefs, has led me to some very important realizations that I still find true to this day.
True love and faith in God can make anything work. I’m going to use my parents’ marriage as an example for this one. My mom and dad went through the process of receiving a blessing from the Catholic Church and my dad signed papers before the wedding stating that he would allow me and my brothers to be raised in the Catholic faith. That’s a hefty decision, but I now know that my dad made it because he truly loves my mom and wanted to make their marriage work from the beginning. My parents prayed together and prepared together in the time leading up to their marriage, knowing that God would be with them through it all.
Christians in general believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Catholics and other Christian denominations have differing beliefs when it comes to the consecrated Eucharist. Catholics believe that the bread and wine actually become Jesus Christ through transubstantiation, while others, such as my dad, do not believe this. While the job of any Christian is to convert, even from within other denominations, I have learned that Catholics and and other Christians share the same belief in that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Apologetics can be used to discuss the differences between denominations, but I have found that acknowledging the fact that Catholics and other Christians are similar in ways leads to a better understanding of each other.
It’s OK to have different beliefs. My dad and my mom definitely have different views and beliefs about Christianity, but they acknowledge it and work to find common ground. As a child in the public school system, three of my childhood best friends were a Mormon, a Muslim, and a Jew. We all knew that we didn’t practice the same religions, but that didn’t stop us from hanging out together. They knew I had different beliefs than they did, but we still supported each other and even went to events at each other's’ places of worship (just a side note: Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are incredibly long and confusing, especially if you don’t read or speak Hebrew). Having friends with different religious beliefs exposed me to many things and taught me that despite having different beliefs, God loves us all.
Everyone deserves respect. As I got older, a few of my friends didn’t really fully understand my faith and began to joke about it. I clearly didn’t appreciate it, but I turned the other cheek and ignored it. Despite the way I was being treated, I still respected their differing beliefs and showed that respect treating them oppositely of how I was treated. As I like to say, I was trying to kill them with kindness. The events in my life like this were perfect examples of how hard it can be to respect someone else’s different beliefs when they antagonize your own, but rising above can lead to more personal growth.
My dad is an incredibly wise man and throughout my life, he has challenged me to determine my own beliefs. I am so in love with my Catholic faith and I have been since I was a kid. Growing up with a dad with slightly different beliefs than me has prepared me for the real world outside the Catholic “bubble” I grew up in and showed me that the best thing we can do when our beliefs differ from someone else is to treat them with respect and pray for each other. Thank you, Dad, for all that you have taught me.
