Back when we met she looked me up on Facebook, where I had listed my faith. She thought it would be a deal-breaker for a minute or two until she read up on pastafarianism.
She has come to accept my faith and has even read the good book cover to cover.
My wife’s Catholic, but apparently that means something different in the Philippines. More vague than dogmatic, I guess? In any case, her religion is nothing like the religion I know from America.
For example, she doesn’t know the first thing about the Bible, not even the standard Sunday school stuff. Nothing. Yes, I’m sure I’ll get comments that Christians don’t read the Bible, but her ignorance is astonishing. A comedian told a Bible joke and she clearly didn’t get it. "You know! It’s the story of ‘I forget’. Blank stare.
She doesn’t let it rule her life in any way. No church, rituals or confession either. We got married in a church, but that wasn’t important to her in the slightest. I wanted to marry there because it’s a quaint little place from the 1920s that was moved to my favorite outfitters (camping, kayaking, cabins, hiking, etc.) land.
She’s definitely prone to magical thinking, but not the “Jesus will make it all good.” sort. More like, “Your car’s AC is clearly failing.” “It’s OK. It was cold a few minutes ago.” Call it positivity in the extreme.
She has a rosary on the rear view window. Often grabs it and does the stations of the cross when nervous. (Which is kinda hilarious, but I don’t laugh.) Found a fairly nice crucifix in the trash and gave it to her. She was thrilled and hung it by her side of the bed. Whatever.
Now that I think on it, I should get her a really nice rosary from Christmas.
Oh, a lot of Filipinos can be quite cultural in their Catholicism.
As far as my own experience goes, catechism in Philippine public schools is more of a guy from the nearby church gives a series of weekly lectures that students don’t really pay attention to in order to have their first communion. And then after confirmation is treated more of a rite of passage than anything. Even my peers from Catholic schools aren’t that much better either, but they do have allotted time for religious teaching (or indoctrination). As far as people I know are concerned, they don’t take it seriously either.
There is no such thing as a Sunday school here, at least nothing that I know of.
There might be some people really serious about their Catholicism, but they’re few and far between. For a lot of people, going to church is for the Christmas eve mass (on night of the 24th of December), and maybe the Easter day mass, and sometimes even for their birthday (which is basically: go to church and pray for a bit, light a candle, etc.) However, going to church every Sunday is not something a lot of people do. And even when they do, not a lot pay attention to the homily and most just go through the ceremony and motions.
However, we can be pretty wild with our devotions: the Black Nazarene being the most well-known. Thousands of people flock to its yearly procession. And then there’s the infamous vows of being crucified during the yearly Lenten reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion in certain town and localities.
And then there’s our love of religious paraphenalia. Lots of Filipino homes have an altar with figures of their preferred saint alongside the icon or statue of the virgin Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus and/or Jesus on the cross. This altar also has a candle (unlit, for safety, but sometimes lit for a few hours on certain days). This is also where some novena booklets, rosaries, and other blessed (as in sanctified by a priest in a special prayer at the end of novena masses) religious paraphernalia are placed.
Despite this outward show of religion, we barely know anything of it. Whatever little we may know of our religion mostly comes to us via whatever our parents teach us, if at all, or that scant cathecism given to us before our first communion. It’s no wonder then, that most of us don’t have any idea what our religion requires us to believe, or whatever the bible says. The bible might sometimes be part of the family altar, but often, it’s just there to gather dust.
Just a disclaimer though, while I count myself among the people I described, I later on became agnostic. However, only my partner (who is more of a Reddit atheist, btw) knows that.
Not surprised the Filipino catholic experience is similar to the latino catholic experience in my neck of the woods. Grew up catholic in a catholic school, and yeah, what you describe tracks. Down to the altar and general ignorance about the nitty gritty.
Also, the cath school thing, around here kids didn’t take the religion class too seriously either. From my class, of about 60-70 kids, only two enrolled into a numerary programme, and besides them, I know a handful are devout church-goers.
I also ended up agnostic, and luckily it only ever turned out to be a problem in two relationships.
I find it so cool that you’ve been vegan for 24 years, as a younger vegan (7 years) I thank you for suffering through groceries with one brand of soy milk and maybe some tofu (if you’re lucky) so that we can live in this world were I have access to vegan fudgesicles at the local grocery store.
I’m curious though, because veganism has definitely been a point of contention in my past few relationships; how do you and your wife manage meals? Do you do separate meals, or is it more of a “she’s vegan at home” type situation?
For sure being vegan has gotten a lot easier since I started. At home, I’m very lucky that she does most of the cooking. Sometimes she eats what she makes for me, other times she makes herself something separate. I wash the dishes to my own standards, so I don’t worry about “contamination” except for a few things: cutting board, frying pan.
Being (or being with) a vegan can be super inconvenient at times. After all these years (married for 21), we are super well-adjusted to it.
Yes but she doesn’t go to church often, she convinced me to come with once and it took me from being an atheist who isn’t opposed to Christianity to being fully convinced that it’s just a worldwide cult
None of that it was just one of the Easter sermons and they were telling a story about jesus, the way they said he always referred to himself as god just felt like it was some sort of heavens gate situation
Yeah, I’ve been out of the church long enough I can hear it now. They all start as a weird cult, and in this case a weird death cult that chose a torture device as their symbol, and were the first recruiting religion to actively shit on everyone else’s religion (AFAIK).
You didn’t actually specify the denomination, but Catholic cannibalism and the various denominations that do rights in dead languages are also fun. Coptics even do it facing the wall away from you. Evangelicals try and make Christianity slick and modern, at least, although it’s a matter of taste if that’s better or worse.
Catholic masses are extremely cult-like. There’s a choreographed stand/sit/kneel dance, “everybody please give us money” phase, plus a part where everyone lines up to eat their unappetizing snack.
And they speed kids through the initiation process so that they are “committed” before high school, when they might start thinking for themselves.
I don’t understand how anyone can look at that religion and not immediately see that it’s mostly a power grab dressed up as a salvation from inherited sins that were made up in the first place. And then later, it’s, “Hey yeah, you’ll get into heaven, just tell us all the dirt on you!”
As someone with heavy exposure to the evangelical protestant side of things, I have to respect the up-frontness, at least. They have canon law, which can’t be re-interpreted on the whim of whatever local priest to suit politics, the churches don’t pretend to be rec centers (or even malls in the 'states), and the priests dress like priests instead of like politicians or car salesmen.
The vagaries of Protestantism allow for a lot of weasel wording and charismatic personalities taking advantage of people - especially really poor people. The Catholic Church hierarchy has 1500 years of well-documented corruption, but I don’t think they have people today running ads promising that every donation towards Pastor McSlimy’s private jet will produce a large financial return through magical means, with staged testimonies suggesting people should forgo essential medical care to donate.
The “grass is always greener on the other side”, though.
Yes and it can be a challenge. We married before I had really solidified my views on it. Ironically my views became solid AF because I started reading the Bible. Fixed me up right away.
We get by because she does not push it on me and I don’t really talk to her about it. I get along with her and her family because they are really good people who choose to follow the best parts of the Bible. They are relatively progressive, meaning they are tolerant of other religions, accept abortion more or less along the lines of Roe v. Wade, etc. I do wish she was an atheist because I liken religion to a cult and sometimes when she makes negative comments about MAGA people I have to hold my tongue. But otherwise she’s great. She takes care of me and I her. Been married 20 years.
If anything happened to her I think I would actively seek a new mate who was atheist.
Honestly we balance each other really well and have some really interesting discussions but I should be clear that it looks like this more than anything else:
She’s semi-Buddhist, from a country where that’s prevalent. She would probably visit a temple or something if we weren’t always together, but it’s not like I stop her from going.
We are lifetime atheists with completely different backgrounds, me a baptiized catholic (as a baby) and my wife sefardic Jewish, her family migrated from Portugal to Amsterdam in 1497 and they have a very interesting and well recorded family history.
My huge family comes mostly from the Aachen region in Germany, Belgium and the South Netherlands. Mine workers.
My grandma had 14 kids, you know catholic and all.
We never felt uncomfortable with each other but our families didn't get along well, they are not on speaking terms.