being raised catholic only taught me to resent god
By Ophelia Monet
I spent my childhood wanting to be
a good person when I grew up— it was uncouth
for a woman to want otherwise; that’s what
the parish priest told me right before he grabbed
my friend by the arm so tightly that it left a
bruise that morphed into such a sickly purple color
that I thought for sure the devil claimed her
as his for the taking. I tended to take to the nuns;
they were faithful women who strove
for a place in a church that did not wish them
to be leaders. After the accident, my
mother had me do “therapy” with a priest and
I wanted to like him, but when a nun
entered his office during a session, he whispered
“I don’t like nuns” to me as if we were
co-conspirators, as if he was letting me in on a
little secret that only I was privy to. I told
my mother about this after the session and she said
she agreed with him, and I asked her how
she could believe in something that didn’t allow
women to lead, and she explained that it’s
what god wanted, and I never understood but I
nodded my head like a good little girl because
that is also what god wanted and I needed to be
good. When the other parish priest was caught
soliciting sex from a young male, I again questioned
how we could be a part of this, and no one batted
an eye, except to say “Oh! The devil must have planted
that bad man to tempt others into sin!” but the truth
was always right in front of our eyes, right in front of
my eyes, and now that I am an adult, I abhor all
that the church stands for, all of the lies they spoon-feed
to the masses, the god they’d molded to only
emulate the illusion of good. As I stray further from their
hand-crafted power, I know that I am already
inherently good, and I never needed the permission of
a business lead solely by men to exist in a world
where half of the human beings are women.
Ophelia Monet (she/her) is a Best of the Net nominated poet, high school teacher, storm chaser, and mother. She lives in the suburbs of Cincinnati with her husband and their son. She is the editor-in-chief of Wildscape Literary Journal. Her work appears or is forthcoming in HOBART, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine, Ink and Marrow Lit, Loud Coffee Press, Heimat Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, The Inflectionist Review, and more.
Artwork Source: Grisaille Panel. French, ca. 1240. In the Public Domain.
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