Forgive me Father for I have sinned...

We took our daughters to a Catholic mass on Saturday. This might not seem like that big a deal but we have been raising them as Congregationalists or dare I say Protestants. There’s something in my Irish Catholic genetic make-up that makes it hard for me to admit that I’m raising my children as Protestants. We had both our girls baptized as Catholics, (God forbid that they should end up in Limbo) but between me being too lazy to take them to mass and my Protestant wife’s limited knowledge of Catholicism they’ve become quasi-Protestants. I say quasi because aside from attending Sunday school they haven’t actually taken any official steps to becoming members.

When my younger daughter was baptized, the priest told me that he didn’t care if they were raised Catholic or Protestant but it was important that they were raised as Christians and attended some sort of religious service. I use his statements as my justification for having Protestant daughters and to assuage my guilt as eons of my impoverished Irish Catholic ancestors collectively spin in their graves every time I step into that tidy white New England style Congregational church.