It's these stories that provoke a swell of emotions in me. On the one hand, nine years in a diverse Miami Catholic school with a strong community service component fueled my sense of social justice. Because the school was comprised of largely working class Caribbean and Latin American immigrant families, I would grow up to become an immigrant rights activist and form an expanded view of what it means to “look” and be an American. “Welcoming the stranger” as Christ once said has always been a cornerstone of my faith, which is why I find the Sisters’ alliance with Trump and his accompanying anti-immigrant rhetoric and stances alarming.
It is also this sensibility and sense of justice that makes me shake my head at my childhood church for its clear disdain of women. The church still doesn’t allow us to become priests, holds us to different standards of conduct than men, and denies us the basic pleasures of life like having protected sex...within marriage!
Let’s be radically honest here, okay? The grand majority of Catholics out there are practical and do use birth control to avoid having 14 children. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a practicing Catholic, once quipped: “I’m a Catholic, but I’ve used birth control, and not just the rhythm method, ok. So, you know, my church has a teaching against birth control. Does that make me an awful Catholic because I believed and practiced that function during part of my life? I don’t think so.”
For a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that priests and nuns have no clue the resources and bandwidth necessary to raise a family, the Catholic Church should not dictate U.S. public policies. But what do I know? I am a mere woman in the era of Trump.
Lately I’ve been quiet so as not to offend my religiously conservative family members. But no more. Those of us who suffered from religious dysfunction and understand the perils of a theocracy as proposed by the Trump Administration and Catholic Church need to speak out.
Let me describe some of the darker and dirtier undercurrents of growing up woman in a Catholic household. I am the oldest of four children, three girls and one boy. When it came to all sins of the flesh, just us girls -- not my brother -- were threatened with hospital virginity checks and called “sluts” and “whores” when we were busted having dalliances with the opposite gender. At every turn during adolescence, we girls were reminded of the importance of remaining pure -- virgins -- until marriage. To not do so meant that we were bad people.
"You have no moral values if you engage in sex outside of marriage."
"Only street walkers stay out past 10."
It was oppressive, like being a part of a cult. You were either a good Catholic, or you would be cut off from your church and family.
I will never forget the first time I was sexually active in college and entered a Planned Parenthood for birth control pills. The whole experience was bewildering. After being harassed by (white) Catholic protesters — a combination of older people praying on their rosaries and more aggressive middle-aged men yelling in our faces -- I walked through bulletproof glass doors and a security guard. The receptionist asked me if I had health insurance.
I shifted nervously. "Um, I come from a very strict Catholic household. My parents can't know that I’m here, and I’m on their insurance."
I then filled out a form so that all services received would be based on my own paltry income, and not that of my parents. God bless Planned Parenthood. They gave me a free physical, grilled me on my and my partner’s sexual history to make sure I had factually correct information and was safe, and ended up paying only $10 for a pack of birth control pills. It was the judgement-free compassion that they showed me that kept me returning, donating to their organization once I had graduated and had the means, and telling every young Latina friend and family member about them.
As Trump seeks to regulate the behavior, namely that of women, I am reminded of Planned Parenthood’s example for a more civil and compassionate — and dare I say, Christian? — treatment of strangers.