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Published July 13, 2010 @ 09:48 by Tania in Amazing Kids, Being Mommy

My children are Catholic. I know, I know... I should whisper it or something. Maybe apologize. Hide the bibles and crosses when company comes over. But I won't.

Eight years ago, Husband and I discussed Baptizing Son One, and decided to, much to the disbelief of many of my friends.

Husband and I come from an interfaith marriage. Yes, some people comment that we look so alike we could be brother and sister (YUCK!) but we come from different faiths. Husband, raised on a farm outside of Toronto, is United. Actually, I think that he is the first United person I had ever met in my life.

I grew up with Catholics and Protestants. Really, may as well have been in Ireland. (Except that many of my Catholic friends were in fact Ukrainian Catholic...) I was raised mostly Ukrainian Catholic, with Roman Catholicism thrown in during my teenage years. I attempted to turn Wiccan in university, to find a goddess-based faith comfortable with my feminism, but learned that my Catholicism was more a part of my foundation than I realized.

For the record, Ukrainian Catholic Priest can marry and have families. I think the loophole is something like they have to be married first and then called to the priesthood. This is one of the best-kept secrets at the Vatican. I still have Roman Catholic friends who swear this is not so.

All of my children were Baptized Ukrainian Catholic, where they follow the Eastern Rites and are Confirmed with their Baptisms. The boys attend Catholic school, and Daughter will be starting there in September.

To be Catholic in this time and place means that you have to defend your faith whenever it comes up. Yes, the church has some evil secrets that are now out in the open. Yes, it sucks to be a woman in the Catholic Church. Yes, the Church's views of abortion, birth control and other issues are more than a little backward. Plus I believe the argument that more wars are fought over religion than anything else.

Yet I am choosing to raise my children with faith. Why? Because I like the comforts of having a belief system in place, and I want my children to grow up with that. I feel relaxed and at home when I enter a church, with the rituals and images. My children may learn about God, but more importantly they learning about the golden rule (treat everyone as you would like to be treated), virtues, and yes, sin.

Religion, to me, is about the myths and stories that provide life lessons, values, and a foundation to why the world works the way it does, and our place in the world. At Catholic school I learned about the Bible as Myth, and compared our myths to those of other backgrounds finding more similarities than differences.

Son One has attended Catholic School for the past four years, and so far my only complaint is that I find the school a little too academic.

But we are Canadian, and Hell is dead. Didn't you know? In our country is OK to bash Catholics, but not any other religion, though Canadians are still mostly Catholic. And though we may not be attending our churches with the same zeal of the Americans, we still believe. In Ontario, we still have a government funded Catholic School System that parallels the public. And while those of us living in Toronto sometimes question this amongst our city of many faiths, we have to remember that we are less than 10% of the country here. A country where our last census found over 45% Catholic, and our Prime Minister who attends mass every Sunday but doesn't praise God in his work.

I love being Canadian. But I am also Catholic, and I want my children to grow up knowing Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. That is my choice. And if you don't like it, too bad.