Trigger warning: Suicide
As a child, I was taught to combat personal hardships with my Catholic faith.
It was simple. Didn’t get the toy I wanted? Say three Hail Marys. Not allowed to go to a sleepover? Two Our Fathers were in order.
Going to a Catholic middle school was a generally positive experience for me, attending Mass on Fridays with my church family was a blast and singing songs whose lyrics were much too complicated for my little mind to comprehend was a great time.
My worries were rooted in what game I was going to play at recess and what time my mom was going to drop off my Subway sandwich for lunch.
Inevitably I grew up and my hardships became more complex.
It was in my senior year at St. Monica Catholic High School that the not-so-well-kept secret of my homosexuality began to haunt me every time I prayed.
I was scared that God didn’t accept prayers that came from the closet.
The overarching notion that being gay was a sin in Catholicism weighed heavily on my religious psyche in my teenage years. How could I find comfort in praying to a God who may not love or accept me?
As backwards as that might sound, I chose to believe that my faith, even if I was gay, was still valid in my personal God’s eyes.
While I subscribed to the idea that my sexuality simply didn’t align with the views and beliefs of the religion I grew up practicing, I continued to pray.
Comfort in my religion came with a lot of reflection.
The mantra of my high school’s church was “All Are Welcome Here” and I have always found great solace in that phrase, and it gave me hope that my sexuality didn’t completely negate the faith I had built since I was a kid.
Along with this, I didn’t ever remember hearing teachers, priests or my church’s monsignor condemn same-sex relationships or embrace homophobic or misogynistic viewpoints.
So much of my fear and doubt in my religion came from generalizations of Catholicism and the “man shall not lay with man” philosophy that I never personally saw.
Granted, I went to school in Santa Monica, so I am fully aware that my positive experience in Catholic school might be personal to me.
Just because I was never exposed to a cult-like, punitive form of Catholicism, I cannot disregard other people’s negative experiences with the church.
My heart breaks for queer kids who have had religion thrown in their face as a way to scare, demean or invalidate them or their lifestyle.
At its core, I believe that true Catholicism should embrace diversity and censure belittling people for something they cannot control, including sexuality.
Juggling faith, identity and sexual orientation can contribute to the destruction of physical and mental well-being among religious queers according to a 2015 Polish study done by Igor J. Pietkiewicz and Monika Kołodziejczyk-Skrzypek.
Queer participants reported having depressive moods, self-loathing and suicidal ideations in regards to religious identity according to the same study.
The dichotomy between growing up in a religious environment and being a gay man is something I struggle with everyday.
I am often uncomfortable when people around me bash religion, but I also understand that the center of one’s conception of faith is their own experience.
Unfortunately more often than not, queer kids are subject to the worst parts of religion, the deep-seated hateful side that is present in many religions, not just Catholicism.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of a church that I believe to be welcoming, and will continue to pray to a God I know to be forgiving and full of love.
To me, the beauty of religion is its nuance. Scriptures are to be interpreted individually, everyone’s vision of a “higher being” is different.
I continue to be steadfast in my faith, a faith based in Catholicism but shaped by me and my relationship with my God.
