Christmas without mass...

With the church I attended for so many Sunday masses and Tuesday choral practices as a child closed for a $15 million renovation, the pastor at Church of the Risen Christ threatening to lock the doors at 2:30 for 4pm mass, and Father Dolan sure to draw a big crowd at Most Precious Blood, my family decided not to attend mass on Christmas this year.

Betcha had no idea I was that familiar with my Denver-area Catholic churches. We're all full of surprises, I guess.

Christmas without mass is not just about Christ. In fact, it's necessarily not about Christ.

If I said it was weird, I'd be lying. A fleeting thought of this being the first time in 25 years that I hadn't attended said event might have waded through the wine and prime rib, but it was swallowed somewhere by mashed potatoes. A flash of discomfit at my sure damnation should there actually be a God that rewards (saves?) believers--and particularly Catholic ones--should have been in order, but it didn't come. It felt perfectly natural not to run around cajoling my brother into getting dressed, being stressed about making it on time and finding a parking spot in the massive lot at STM and finding seats altogether, or being sad at being banished to the gym when the church was full. You might even say it was relaxing.

For the past few years, we've spent Christmas Eve at my mother's best friend's house. First mass and then to ME's. ME is a little bit nutty--by her own admission--and has a tendency to model her old Girl Scouts uniform or the dress she wore in my parents' wedding after a few glasses of wine. ME is probably the only person I know who attends church on a daily basis (yes, I meant to write daily, not weekly), but is also refreshingly open to alternative ideas. She's firm in the idea that while she likes to pray at mass, she believes many things the Catholic Church may not. And while conversations with her can jump from church politics to reincarnation to women with bigger hips are smarter and back (it can be rather disconcerting), there is plenty of room for discussion and dissent and even revelation.

Over wine and cheese on this Christmas Eve, my family and ME's were discussing the ludicrousness of the STM renovations and ME chimed in with her rather unfavorable opinion of the current clergy at STM.

Fire and brimstone.

You're a sinner.

With lots of pointing.

Each time she pointed, or repeated the priest's denunciations of the imaginary laity, I saw myself sitting in a pew or in the chairs reserved for the choir at church--at home and at Duke.

People often ask me why I left the Catholic Church. Those who laugh at or disdain religion tend not to care, but those who are still mired in their respective religiosity or struggling to escape it are often curious. I'm never quite sure how to answer.

There is the throwback: "I never really believed; it just took me a while to come to terms with it." And while that is mostly true, there was also a certain comfort derived from attending mass. The order, the chanting, the singing, the ritual and tradition.

There is an easy way to get rid of the question: "Do you read the news? Have you any idea what the Catholic Church has been up to lately?" But it's not like we didn't know about that before lawsuits became all the rage, and I stopped going to church long before that came out.

There's the doctrinal standpoint: Condoms, birth control, women in the clergy, eating Jesus, need I go on? But that was also all there before. And as far as I can tell, Catholics are some of the most liberal people I know, and the most open to debate on such issues.

There's the classic: "I couldn't take the guilt anymore." But that wasn't nearly as much of an issues as I'll make it in my memoir. ;)

There are, quite frankly, myriad points that I took issue with. But I kept going, until one day, I didn't.

So, what happened? The easiest thing to say is that it all came to a head. One day, it all became so much to justify and warp and debate that I couldn't take it anymore. And while that might be true, memories of my own complaints similar to ME's resurfaced on Christmas Eve.

It's no fun being told that you're a sinner. It's no fun being told that you must repent and recant and recite your Hail Marys if you ever want a chance of getting into heaven. It's definitely no fun being told these things while you're at church on a Sunday morning and all your friends are sleeping off their hangovers in someone else's bed. ME maintained that the current priest doing the youth mass at STM was a loony, out of touch with reality and stuck somewhere in a dead-50-years-now morality. He is driving them away, she said.

And a lot of them are going to MPB. Father Dolan, who officiated the youth masses at STM for much of my middle- and high-school years, had been moved to MPB, a parish not ten minutes away from STM. In contrast to finding a reason why I left the church, Father Dolan is probably much of the reason I attended church. Known for his compassion and his identification with the younger crowd and sermons that appealed to a broad sect of people and spoke about living as a Christian instead of dying as a sinner, Father Dolan probably kept many people coming to STM.

I didn't need to believe that Jesus died on the cross or that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or that Moses parted the Red Sea to get something out of mass with Father Dolan. And when I wasn't finding that anymore, 'I couldn't take the guilt, people are dying of AIDS because you won't let them use condoms, scandal-begets-scandal, I never really believed' got the best of me.