For Me, Churches Aren't About Religion

 

By Paul Fraumeni

(Note to readers: this essay won 1st price in its category in a competition hosted by the Georgina Centre for Arts and Culture in May, 2023. The assignment was to write a piece inspired by one of seven photos by Tom Zsolt.)

My religion, Catholicism, often drives me up the wall.  But the churches work for me. 

We all know the darkness of Catholicism.  The religion doesn’t allow same sex marriage, women cannot be priests, priests can’t marry or have sex.  The Church has a shameful history of pedophilia and abuse of Canadian Indigenous peoples. 

But when I walk into a church, the political stances and even the religion itself float away.  A welcome warmth comes over me.  I find I can talk directly to God and Jesus, right through the religion.  And that relationship makes me feel good. 

For years, I would go into a church for the formal mass or for prayer.  Usually, when it was prayer time, I was there to beg for something good to happen.

In 1986, my son Nicky was born.  The next day, we were told he was born without one of his eyes.  Initially, the doctors didn’t know what that would mean in terms of his health or cognitive ability.  As he stayed in St. Michael’s Hospital and then Sick Kids in his early days, I went into St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and prayed – hard.  “Please, Jesus, make Nicky better.”

He didn’t get ‘better.’  Nicky eventually was diagnosed as being profoundly mentally challenged.  He lived until age 28.  He couldn’t walk or talk or take care of himself.  He lived the best life he could.  But the fact that all my praying didn’t make him “ok” always bugged me. 

But then I changed my perspective.  I went into the cathedral, knelt down, blessed myself, looked up at Jesus on the cross and said, “You don’t actually change things for us, do you?  Not in some wave of the hand and all is good.  So, from now on, no more prayers.  I’m just going to tell you how I’m feeling.”

And 35 years later, I’m still doing that.  But I need a church to have that conversation.  To me a church is a haven where I can talk openly and safely. 

When I saw Tom Zsolt’s photograph Stairway to Heaven, that feeling came over me.  Tom’s photo shows a stark environment that is not immediately inviting.  The whiteness of the church, the feeling of intense heat from the surrounding desert. 

But, it’s a church.  And even in a desert, for me, a church can be an oasis.