A six-pound, nine-ounce bundle of original sin, I was doomed upon arrival. In my infantile state, I failed to realize the totality of my holy burden. According to the Catholics, I was responsible for the mistakes of Adam and Eve, people I’d never met. Until I was baptized, I risked an eternity in Limbo, and in my first wee weeks, I was forbidden to leave home. I didn’t object when the priest doused my naked head with his sanctified holy water, making my miniature soul safe. I stayed sound asleep while his whispered prayers washed away my affliction. And just to be sure of my salvation, a tiny crystal rosary was hung around my neck, forever tethering me to an unseen God.
My mother was the driver of Catholicism in our family, raised up in a cult-like Irish faith that she dared not question. On Sundays, she dragged my sister Kristen and me to St. John the Baptist, where, from a Gothic jewel-encrusted altar that served more to intimidate than to enlighten, the Word of the Lord was preached down upon us. Like my mother, we were taught to revere the priests and their sermons, our devotion shown in our silence. Forced to sit up at attention on the hard wooden pews, we also learned to stand, knee, and pray on cue. The Bible was an instruction manual—do this; don’t do that.
There was no wiggle room for females in the Church. I was boxed in by generations of rote narrative about a woman’s place before God and her husband. And truthfully, when I was young, I was excited by the prospect of my future as wife and mother . . .
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