Katie

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In her own words

Three years ago, I spent 33 days walking across northern Spain with two of my best friends. This long walk is called the Camino de Santiago, a famous pilgrimage that people do for all kinds of different reasons. I wasn’t sure exactly why I was going except that it sounded epic, my friends wanted to do it, and I wanted to have this great spiritual experience I’d heard so much about. Also, going off on a journey always makes me feel like Frodo Baggins. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings, Frodo must leave his precious home (the Shire) to go on a very dangerous journey with a cast of characters called the Fellowship in order to save their world.

One of the most important nights of the Camino for me was when we stayed at this very old and beautiful albergue, a hostel for pilgrims on the Camino. This albergue was an abandoned old church in the middle of the plains of northern Spain, and we were at least 15 days into our walk by the time we reached it. On this particular night, we sat down to eat the communal dinner at a long candlelit table and a few of the people sitting near me were familiar strangers who I’d seen along the way.

We got to talking, and eventually, someone asked me about whether my Catholic parents are still an important factor in why I’m Catholic now. I’d heard this type of question countless times before--after all, my dad teaches theology and my mom is a chaplain, so it seems natural that I would be staunchly Catholic, too. But behind this question I always feel what people are really asking me: are you just Catholic because your parents raised you that way, or are you a free thinker who’s chosen this for yourself? 

But this time I could tell the German man who inquired was openly curious, and he asked the question in a kind way. For me the question of why I’m still Catholic is loaded, and it’s all wrapped up in not only the journey of my faith but just the journey of my life. I responded by sharing with these strangers almost my whole life story, which began in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a place we used to call the “Downstairs Church” (and, if I’m Frodo in this story, the downstairs church would be my shire, my home).

My parents moved to Minnesota for my dad’s job, so when they first got to St. Paul they knew absolutely no one. Luckily for them, they found my childhood parish, St. Marks, and the foundation of St. Mark’s family life---the kid-friendly Mass held at 9:30 am every Sunday morning in the basement of the old church, which had been painted yellow with pews installed in a half circle around the altar. I loved the downstairs church as a little kid, we sang (that’s where I found out I loved singing and could sing), we laughed, we saw our friends, I barely knew we were there for Mass. Again, the downstairs church was my home.

When I was about twelve, a new order of priests were placed at our parish, and they changed everything. They closed the 9:30 am mass and the downstairs church, opting for all Masses to happen in the more gothic style sanctuary upstairs. They even changed the music, and suddenly I no longer knew what we were singing. Many of my parents' friends scattered to other church communities that were more like the downstairs church, but my parents decided to stick it out at St. Mark’s.

A few years later I was in high school and I was sitting in Mass at St. Mark’s, when I suddenly began to imagine what it would be like to be a priest. I saw myself in the sanctuary, preaching a homily, standing behind the altar. I started to cry because I knew that what I was imagining was impossible for me and, without thinking, I walked out of Mass, and went to sit alone in the empty downstairs church. I was asking myself--what if it was all a lie? What if what I thought was a good, true community was actually against me and everything I believed? And if that was true, could I even believe in the God I believed in? 

For the rest of my years in high school I kept wrestling with this tension--the memory of my downstairs church and what I knew my faith community could look like, and the reality that I was constantly reminded of: that women could not be priests in the Catholic Church, and that apparently my feminism and my Catholicism were clashing ideas.

The weekend before my freshman year of college began, I decided to go on a retreat for new students called “The Service Plunge”. While I have always been a person who cares about service, I’ll admit I mainly wanted to go because I believed I’d meet cool people, and I did. On the service plunge I met my freshman year roommate, Hannah, who became my best friend. She was raised without any faith, and yet to me she seemed intimately attuned to the Holy Spirit--she’s full of love for life and music and writing. I also found the campus ministry community, where I chose to participate despite all my mixed feelings about the Catholic Church. I was drawn to these people who knew the songs I used to sing as a kid. 

Eventually I was leading retreats and leading a volunteer group in our campus center for service. Even though I was struggling to find out if I belonged in the Catholic Church, the people I had around me kept pulling me toward new opportunities to serve others, to be in a community no matter how fragmented.

My classes in college also challenged me. Because my dad is a theology professor and my mom has her masters in theology, usually when I had doubts about my faith or questions about the Church, I could ask my very intelligent parents. They always had reasonable answers backed by centuries of scholarship (when it came to women priests though, they just empathized with me). But in my philosophy classes, I had professors who I knew were intelligent, wise, and kind, and they did not believe in God. These people presented another kind of future for me: I could be kind, feminist, smart, but perhaps to be those things I had to leave my church behind, and I thought that meant my God too.

Then something happened that would affirm my faith in God and completely change my relationship with my Church. During my sophomore year I applied to be an Resident Assistant, but I wasn't chosen. I got the denial email two hours before I went on my first silent retreat. I’ve always been a perfectionist, and held myself to very high standards. Many people knew I’d applied and expected me to get the position. I was embarrassed by the way I’d expected to be chosen, almost without a doubt. With serendipitous timing (or God's loving movement), I’d been encouraged to go on the silent retreat by my campus ministry friends. I am eternally grateful for this.

On the silent retreat, alone in the woods, I found God loving me, even when I felt like I’d failed to become who I thought I would be. In silence I found a kind of childlike joy. So I wouldn’t be an RA, and you know what? God loved me. I found myself literally giggling in prayer from relief. So I wouldn’t be a priest. Now what? Would I always be Catholic? I wasn’t sure. But I realized no matter what, God would love me. It wasn’t my place in a church or my job that determined God’s love for me, which left me with a new kind question: rather than asking myself, "Can I be in a Church where I disagree with some teachings?",  I began to ask "Is this a community who leads me to the love of God, even if it sometimes makes me angry?"

When I was graduating from college I had to make a decision about what to do next. I was torn between teaching English through Fulbright in Mexico or being a case worker through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) in Chicago at a non-profit called Taller de Jose (the workshop of Joseph). I knew that with Fulbright, I would have a great experience on my resume, make connections, and look impressive. Yet, I thought back to my experience on the Service Plunge and the silent retreat and was reminded that it doesn’t matter what I’m doing but who I’m with. I believed that in JVC, I’d find really good people---people who would keep leading me into relationship with God. And I did.

In JVC I met the Sisters of St. Joseph, the founders of Taller de Jose, where I worked. The sisters are the most radical people I know. They have an exhilarating and contagious kind of freedom and passion. I also met and worked with over 300 clients, mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants from the little village. My house mates from JVC are two of my best friends, and at the end of our year we walked the Camino together. These two friends are also Catholic, and I’m still Catholic today.

Once I finished this rambling story, the German man across the table looked at me and said, “I’m
just surprised someone as young as you could be so close-minded about your faith." I was so confused: had this person not even listened to my story? Even though I felt supremely unheard, I started to doubt myself again. What if I really was close-minded? Maybe I was still naive to think that I could believe what I believe and still try to make the Catholic Church my home.

The next day I was back to walking with my friends, and I told them what happened. And they reminded me: no one gets to tell you what your faith is to you, you are the one who knows. They were right---I do know. I know my journey in a way that man never will. After that reminder from my friends, I was so happy to have those women with me, to give me back my footing before I’d completely spiraled. It hit me: it would be wrong to say I’m Catholic or I believe in God just because of my parents, but it would be equally false to say I’m Catholic just because of my unquenchable individualistic spirit that’s found all the answers and made my faith my own.

I definitely haven’t found all the answers, and my faith is most definitely not my own, it’s shared with every person who’s ever walked with me on my journey. With everyone from the Service Plunge, campus ministry, and JVC. Because where was that German man when my parents were new to Minnesota, had no friends, and found a whole community and life in the downstairs church? Where was he when my Church was out on the Service Plunge planting trees and picking fruit from the community garden? Would I have even gone on the silent retreat if it were not for my Church, my friends who saw my need for it and encouraged me? Did he see the small local Catholic Churches be there for my immigrant clients when I worked at Taller de José---these churches run almost entirely by women, who again and again, when every other social system failed, had extra diapers and food and clothes to give?

I knew what my Church was, and it was bigger and more complicated and more beautiful than that man could understand. I will never be a priest, and the fact that women can’t be ordained to the priesthood will always hurt me, but I am not alone in this. There are plenty of Catholics who struggle with this, and I’ve found so many of them by continuing to be myself no matter what space I’m in. It also helps that I've met some awesome priests, and so they are no longer a faceless blob of exclusion in my imagination, but just members of my community. So no matter how Catholicism may look to someone else, my Church, my life, and my Cod are no---and never will be---centered around a small number of ordained men.

I realized walking with my women friends that I really am like Frodo Baggins---all my life I’ve been dreaming about getting back to the Shire. I’ve been looking for my home, my downstairs church. But like Frodo, what I’ve found instead is my fellowship, the people who show me those glimpses of the downstairs church no matter where I go, sustaining each other as we create what Church could be, bringing each other closer to the liberating love of Cod as we walk through our lives together.

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