Confessions of a Free Range Prolapsed Catholic

This is my third attempt at starting a blog. The title came to me at about 4.00am two days ago. Having recently been successful in logging on to the the Australian Government website to complete the census, on the day it was supposed to be completed  which makes me a very, very special little Aussie) I had to wrestle with the “Religion” question.

Encouraged by believers and non believers alike I was in a quandary! Yes!  We really have become a completely secular country with commitment to the footy team replacing commitment to and belief in a particular religious tradition. Sadly, my local football team is the Newcastle Knights and they have been on a steady trip down the gurgler for the last few years since being taken over by a multimillionaire who went broke and a GOD in the coaching field who brought a demigod player with him and still couldn’t get the team up so I decided against naming footy as my religion.

“Give me a boy till the age of 7 and I have a man for life” or something like that is a quote I remember from one of the great Saints about how to capture souls in the name of God. Well, I guess that applied to girls too (if you have read this far you need to know I refuse to accept male pronouns as generic references to both genders)  because the tykes certainly had me for my entire formative life, but I could no longer put “catholic” so I opted for “Christian”.

But truth is, I cannot ignore my catholicity – it would be like ignoring my blood type. So I am stuck with it but in deference to my experience as a catholic and the reality of my reproductive organs I classify myself as free range and prolapsed in my faith practice!

My Mother was 98 when she died.The day before she died, she held my hand and thanked me for being a good daughter. Looked into my eyes and said “you always belonged to me”. I wear her words around my neck  as a symbol of my religion!

My name is Louise – “every little breeze”