The Main Reason the St. Brigid's Cross That Hangs Around My Neck is Moreso a Question Than an Answer

My grandmother is very Catholic. Grew up in predominantly Irish Catholic neighborhoods, west side of Chicago, went to Catholic schools, had nine children before asking the pope if she could please use birth control since the doctor said another child would kill her, and still at 82 reads at mass every Sunday and prepares meals for the Father of her parish.

When my grandmother talks seriously about religion and faith and the power of god, she frequently cries. I have long thought of this as being demonstrative of the importance of faith in her own life. Only today did I first come to the idea that maybe, just maybe, she cries out of her own doubt, and her participation in the Catholic faith is a long and winding project of denial because it would be too heart-breaking, too paralyzing, to have worked so hard and suffered so uselessly for "God" to not exist as the church purports "him" to. But it's just a thought.

Today's severe skepticism of, repulsion from and rejection of religious doctrine courtesy of the Catholic Church making a "pedophile paradise" out of the remote villages of Alaska Natives.