The sins of the fathers

I was 10 when I dragged my younger brothers and sister to Sunday Mass in Hoopeston, Ill., just after we moved to this small town that called itself “The Sweet Corn Capital of the World.” The parish priest spotted us the minute we came through the door and invited us into his office after Mass.

My brothers and sister twisted nervously on the couch as the priest turned to me, perched on the edge of a small chair. “You’re the oldest, aren’t you?’

I nodded. “Where’s your mother and father?” he asked.

“They’re at home,” I replied.

“Why didn’t they come to Mass today?”

“They don’t go to church.” I’d never gone to church with my parents; it was only because my grandmother took me that I knew anything about Catholicism at all.

“And why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess they don’t want to.” Mom said it was our choice to go if we wanted; she had become Catholic only to marry my dad. Whenever his mother asked if he went to church, my dad always said he went to St. Mattress on Sunday mornings.

The priest could barely hide his disapproval. “It’s a mortal sin for your parents not to attend Mass. You have a responsibility to get your parents to come. You don’t want them to burn in hell for their sins, do you?”

“But how can I make them do something they don’t want to do?”

“Ask God to help you find a way.” With that, he stood up, made the sign of the cross over our heads, and walked us to the door. “Next week, I want to see your entire family here.”

My mom was furious when I told her what the priest said. “What gives him the right to hold you responsible for what I do? That’s plain wrong.” It was the last time I went to Mass in the two years we lived in that town.

I hadn’t thought of that incident until I read about the archbishop of Quebec’s threat to Canadian lawmakers last week. Once Canada’s same-sex marriage bill becomes law, Cardinal Marc Ouellet announced, the church could refuse to baptize children of gay parents.

Suddenly I burned with the same anger my mother had displayed more than 30 years ago. By now, I’ve long grown used to the hypocritical stance of the Catholic Church toward gay people; Benedict XVI’s latest pronouncements roll off my back just like the bluster of blowhard Jerry Falwell.

But denying children the rite of baptism, which is the first sacrament in the church and symbolically opens the door to enable a person to have a relationship with God, is something entirely different.