As a child, at around the age of seven, I remember squeezing my eyes shut and trying to come up with some new “sins” to confess to the priest every Sunday.

I reasoned that it must be deadly boring for him to listen to the same old litany of childish misbehaviour every week and I wanted to make it more interesting. So I would go through my usual list and try to rotate them accordingly: I fought with my sister. I said a bad word. I lied to my mother. I talked back to my father (no strike that, I used it last time… so as I stood in line, waiting my turn, I would rack my brains trying to think of something else which merited a confession).

I had been taught well, mostly by my parents, about what constituted a sin or not. In my head, I had simplified it to its most basic essence: it was anything which made you feel very bad and guilty afterwards.

Growing up Catholic, there’s a lot to feel guilty about because there are a multitude of do’s and don’ts, and saying sorry to the person concerned was not enough either.

The fact that you have to actually confess what you’ve done wrong, saying it out loud to a third person who wasn’t even there at the time, is what introduces us to the concept of shame. In fact, the wrongdoing would take on enormous proportions, the longer I waited to confess it. I was a pensive child with an overactive imagination, who took the confession business very seriously, and I was always slightly worried that I would not be absolved. To my immense relief, the priest would always say “your sins are forgiven”. Phew.

How innocent and harmless this all seems now.

Thou shalt not…

As I grew older, the sins took a different turn, and apart from the usual ones involving sex (which basically boiled down to one dictum: don’t do it), there were others which, while not as alluring, carried an equal dose of guilt. Hatred, spite, malice, envy, revenge, the wish that someone you don’t like would simply disappear from the face of the earth – let’s be honest, which one of us has not felt any of these things or thought any of these thoughts?

Which one of us hasn’t gossiped or spoken badly of others behind their backs? Yes, I’ve done it, guilty as charged, and yes I’ve felt shamefaced afterwards about my own behaviour and vowed in my heart not to do it again. These are not issues exclusive to Catholicism, of course, for they are at the heart of decent, moral behaviour.

But it’s hard to be a good person, let alone a good Catholic, with the Ten Commandments constantly looming at the back of your mind; a virtual minefield of potential sins just waiting to be confessed. Added to these are the Church’s teachings on contraception, homosexuality, divorce…all of which are dictated by admonishments of “don’t, don’t, don’t”.

We do our best, we try with all our might, but this faith of ours is not the easiest of paths to follow. No wonder so many people have given up altogether: either dabbling in other religions which seem to require less effort, or giving up on organised religion but retaining a belief in God, or turning completely agnostic.

Over the years, though, a new breed of Maltese Catholics has evolved. They still describe themselves as Catholic, but make huge allowances for their not-quite Catholic lifestyle and behaviour by rationalising it, re-shaping it and re-moulding it in their minds until it emerges into the latest catchphrase “I don’t see anything wrong with it”.

That’s fine, of course, who am I to judge? (Although I have to pedantically point out that just because you don’t see anything wrong with it, it still doesn’t make it right in the eyes of the Church. I’m just saying.)

What I find interesting, however, purely as an observer, is that the more someone has “transgressed” in one way or another, the more fervently religious they seem to become. Perhaps it is human nature to want to be accepted back into the fold, for which read society – and in Malta, society and the Church mesh much more often than we might think. It is true that in a small community like ours it is rather more difficult to pave your own way than it would be in, say, a country where you could just move to another town where no one knows you.

But here, ah here, a single mother who has a daughter out of wedlock will still want her to be raised a Catholic – the child will be automatically accepted into a Church school because she is a “special case”, she will be sent to muzew with all the other little girls, and she will trot along to receive her First Holy Communion, just like everyone else. Isn’t that how it should be, I hear you ask indignantly, why should the child be ostracised? I agree, she should not be made to feel like an outcast, but I wonder at the religious to-ing and fro-ing of this hypothetical mother, who seemed to have no qualms about not living according to her faith, but is adamant that her daughter follows all the conventions.

How much of this is based on an actual belief in the Catholic faith, and how much is due to the fear of not belonging in our judgemental society, which has conditioned us into doing what we are “supposed to do” because that’s what everyone else does.

Catholics of convenience

I feel we have come to a crossroads now; a fork in the road which divides those who are devout Catholics, genuinely trying to live according to their faith, and what I can only describe as hypocrites who mouth all the platitudes and go through the motions but don’t really bother about all that silly stuff like confession, waiting to have sex until you get married, waiting until you are married to have children and, uhm, getting married.

Of course, I know through personal experience that a lot of couples who live together have done so not necessarily through choice, but because there is no choice if one or both are separated. But, as has been clearly explained by the Curia, divorce and remarriage don’t qualify you to receive the Eucharist either. People seem to be astonished by this. I am astonished that they are so astonished – did they receive the same catechism lessons that I did? Or maybe they were sick that day and missed that particular lesson. Catholic marriage is for life folks – the fancy Church wedding is not there just for the pretty pictures.

I didn’t need the bishops to tell me that I should not receive Holy Communion – I pretty much figured that one out all by myself. I would feel like a right hypocrite walking up that aisle – and I may be many things, but a hypocrite is not one of them.

The ongoing confused discussion on this issue reveals either that all that indoctrination since we were tots has been in vain, or that a considerable section of the population is living in complete denial. The illogical way in which some people rationalise their own behaviour to themselves is now exposed in the glaring light for all to dissect and examine. What has also emerged is a sort of grading scale when it comes to the gravity of different sins. I’ve lost count of the many times people have come up with the non sequitur: well, if priests who abuse children can receive Holy Communion, why can’t I?” or “why doesn’t the Church single out those who cheat on their taxes/beat their wives/are involved in corruption?”

Only an Italian expression will do here: “Ma che c’entra?” Again, isn’t it obvious that one type of wrongdoing doesn’t automatically cancel out the other? We are so busy pointing fingers at other people’s sins, that we manage to even make ourselves feel self-righteous about what we’ve done which is not quite by the book. “Yes, what I’ve done is wrong, but at least it’s not as bad as what that guy did.”

Why can’t we just accept that, yes, we are lapsed Catholics, we are not living according to the teachings of the Church, we cannot receive the Eucharist but we are still welcome in God’s Church if we so choose? The Host has almost become like the Holy Grail: “I must have it!”

Many years ago an acquaintance of mine was describing how he hadn’t been inside a Church in years but when his son was about do his First Holy Communion, he decided he would go up and receive Holy Communion with him. He didn’t bother with confession, and his dismissive remark was “mhux b’xejn?” (it’s free isn’t it?).

Now I am certainly not the world’s most religious person, but I am still taken aback by such a casual approach to the sacraments. If I’m not mistaken, some parishes insist that children should attend muzew at least four times a week. I hate to tell you this – but judging from the kind of Catholics of convenience there are around us, all this insistence on muzew seems to be a sheer waste of time.

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