My parents were Catholic, and grandparents etc. In the Bronx my sisters and cousins went to St. Peter and Pauls Catholic school. I went to St.Fidelis when we moved to Queens.
We had to say, I am a ROMAN Catholic. It seems there are also Greek Orthodox Catholics and it had to be made CLEAR we were not one of them, although I have never met one.
My family was a bit odd, they did not (thankgoodness!) force us to go the church and they did not go, yet we had to go to Catholic school and do the sacraments. (Baptism, First Penance First Communion, Confirmation).The school forced us to go to church though and you could be thrown out of school if you constantly missed church.
So, any THOUGHT, DEED or ACTION could send you straight to hell if any of those were a Mortal sin. But a Venial sin, a little sin, will not cause the soul eternal damnation.
Confessions were every Saturday, so you could receive communion on Sunday at church. Father Conway was a mean priest and NO ONE wanted to go to him for Confession. We would all line up at different confessionals (these were around the sides of the church). A nun would have to force some kids to stand at his confessional. A priest would sit in the middle and there would be two lines, one person would enter on one side and confess, when he/she left someone would enter on the other side.
Not our church but you see the confessional booths. On more than one occasion, Father Conway would start screaming, get out of his booth and throw the boy who was confessing out of the church! Thus, everyone that had to go to him to confess...lied. You made up little venial sins so he would not embarrass the hell out of you.
After confessing your sins, he would bless you and give you prayers to say at the alter rail, appropriate to the sins you confessed.
Afterwards, all will be forgiven and your soul was clean and you will go straight to heaven if you died at that moment. But just one little tiny venial sin ( I wish I had Laura's hair, O NO, sin of Envy!) you would end up in Purgatory.
~Purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven. ~
You can still go to heaven, I used to pray all the time to get my family out of there. Because, you know, there was no chance to go straight to heaven.
We were taught, gay people, were going straight to hell.
You could NOT eat meat on Friday. All Fridays. Because Jesus died on a Friday and this was a recognition of his sacrifice. I had to look it up because I forgot why. (how stupid..) You had to confess if you did eat meat on Friday.
You had to dress decent for church and females HAD to have their head covered in church. I remembered being told it was because Mary covered her head. Hello..that's how they dressed back then. Males were not to have their head covered.
When you received the host (body of Christ) you had to just have it lay on your tongue and let it dissolve. I'm pretty sure if you chewed it you would go straight to hell with thorns in your eyes.
If you married a non-catholic, your children HAD to be brought up Catholic.
We were taught ONLY CATHOLICS, probably ROMAN Catholics, went to heaven. I was so happy I was born Catholic. My cousin Mary became an Episcopalian to marry her husband. I was HORRIFIED she would give up her hope of getting to heaven!
The Jews killed Jesus. I don't think we were really ever taught that Jesus was a jew.
I slowly started to question a lot of things.
It took me awhile, I was an adult before I told my mother that I did not believe in the church any more because I did not know how she would react. But she was ok about it and we had some good conversations about life after death.
When my mother was dying, my very religious Aunt Lee (although she drank beer every day and swore like a sailor) called her Bishop and he gave my mother the sacrament of Extreme Unction right before she died.
The Last Rites are a religious process for cleansing one of his or her sins before they leave this earth. Since Catholics believe in judgment after death, they want to leave this life as clean souls free from sin. The practice and prayers of the Last Rites protect the recipient on their journey to the afterlife.
Although I did not believe it any more, it was a comfort to me.
The Church became more lenient over the years, from what I understand. My personal opinion is all organized religions are just a business to get your money and keep you like sheep so you continue supporting them.
The Church works for many people. I say, whatever gets you through this life, is fine with me.
St.Fidelis, where I spent many happy and sad moments of my life.
