Reconciling Catholicism and sexuality

Two of our writers discuss their respective religious upbringings and how their childhood faith sits alongside their identities

Catholicism and queerness haven’t always mixed all that well. Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

In our regular back-to-back column, we explore the same subject from two different perspectives. Two writers take on a topic and offer different takes on it. We kick off this series with two of our regular writers – Sorcha and Hannah – sharing both of their experiences on growing up Irish Catholic and queer.

Sorcha

When I was younger, I used to go visit my grandmother in Ireland once a year. It had become a tradition that when I came she would buy me a book of my choice from an independent bookstore on the local highstreet. One particular year I found an illustrated children’s Bible and I remember my grandmother being so excited I had picked something religious; she purchased it for me immediately. For many years I loved that book – I knew all the parables by heart and used to try and recreate the illustrations in my free time. I still have that bible now and sometimes look at it to remind myself of the upbringing I had and why that bible was so important to me.

‘My relationship with religion shifted when I accepted that I was bisexual.’

In short, I was raised in an Irish Catholic household. I only attended Catholic schools, would go to church with my mother every Sunday, received my First Holy Communion and Confirmation and even had favourite hymns. Being a part of a religion and the existence of a God had been instilled in me from a young age. Even when I had my doubts and started to question religion as a concept altogether, I would always come back to the fact that it was something I had to believe in because it was all I knew.

Due to my upbringing it was difficult for me to accept my sexuality and this is still something I struggle with to this day. I was always taught that it was something wrong – there were no parables about being sexually attracted to both men and women, no lessons for me to learn. It was always something that was condemned. My relationship with religion shifted when I accepted that I was bisexual, I learned that Catholicism wasn’t something I had to partake in because I didn’t share any of the same views. What I was was considered wrong in this community and that wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of because I didn’t want to feel shame.

But, to this day I would never consider myself an atheist. I am firmly agnostic, and I think that’s more as a nod to the upbringing I had. I haven’t been to mass on a Sunday with my mother in a long time, and don’t see myself going back anytime soon but I don’t think I’ll ever turn my back fully on religion because of how instilled it was in me despite the fact that according to Catholicism I should’ve been condemned a long time ago.

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

Hannah

Growing up Catholic can lead to a complicated relationship with sexuality, to say the least. Even if that sexuality is not necessarily transgressive, it is still quite the feat to be able to shake the grip of Catholic guilt in adulthood. Throw this sense of shame in with the realisation that you might be gay and, man, you have all the ingredients right there for a complete breakdown. And yet, somehow, I have managed to maintain quite the amicable relationship with my childhood faith, in spite of – or perhaps even because of – my queerness.

I grew up with a father that had inherited staunch Irish Catholicism from my grandmother and a mother who had even converted from being an Anglican to a Catholic just to get into my grandmother’s good books. It was a childhood characterised by Catholicism. Everywhere I turned, especially at my grandparents’ house, I was surrounded by religious imagery. To get a cup of tea from the kitchen, I had to pass not one, not two, but three framed images of the Virgin Mary. Meeting my grandmother was like meeting the protector of the faith – never was there a more archetypal Irish Catholic than her, whose name was Bernadette and who never failed to make sure that I was behaving myself at Sunday mass.

‘God became the first person I could come out to.’

There was no escaping from Catholicism when I was a kid, whether it was the constant reminders I found at my grandparents’ place or whether it was the masses I regularly attended with my family, I was never too far from God as a child. 

By the time I had reached my teenage years, I had found myself praying far more often than I had ever intended or expected to. In my adolescence, I started to come to terms with the fact that my thoughts were often consumed by other girls, and the fact that I couldn’t seem to establish any actual attraction or connection to boys, and so began to navigate my way through queerness at fifteen-years-old. As I acknowledged to myself the fact that I was drawn towards women and not men, I realised that I needed somewhere to voice this acceptance aloud to but, at fifteen, I was not yet ready to tell my family or friends about the fact that I thought I might be gay. I needed someone to listen to me that wouldn’t necessarily respond, who I thought might not judge, and who I knew would never share what I’d told them with anyone else. As it turns out, this someone was God. 

As it turns out, my sexuality could fit alongside my faith.’

While it was conflicting at times, to consider myself a Catholic and to have accepted my queerness, my Catholicism was not the hindrance to my sexuality that I thought it might be. Don’t get me wrong, Catholic guilt does not disappear, regardless of your orientation, and there were times that I felt I was committing a sin. And yet, the only person that I could talk to before I came out to those closest to me was God himself – he was the only one I knew would listen without saying a word back. And it was comforting to whisper aloud the way I felt about girls in the darkness and to know that no one would respond with judgment. In telling God, I was no longer keeping it to myself – but nor was I diving into the unknown by revealing this fledgling part of myself to those around me. 

When I finally did tell my family that I was gay at sixteen my father told me that, in spite of what other members of the church might say, God was not the judgmental type. In my father’s eyes, God had created me in his image and, thus, he must be happy for me to be gay. For my father, there was no sin because his God is a loving one, one who offers no judgment. And so, alongside all of the complexities of Catholicism and queerness came simplicity – where God turned out to be the first person (if you can call a religious entity a ‘person’) I ever actually came out to, and where my sexuality could fit alongside my faith after all.

Herkind is a safe space for young LGBTQ+ womxn to explore and enjoy their identity – otherwise known as your big sis’.