Diary of a Gen Z Student: I opted out of religion at 12 - I never bought the idea that I was a sinner

Irish Examiner columnist Jane Cowan. Photo: Barry Cronin

I remember sitting in the back row in my local church when I was 12, on the edge of the pew. 

The rest of my class would be sitting up close to the altar, preparing for their Confirmation. 

One image that is burned into my memory is seeing the backs of my classmates’ heads, tilted down, as they prayed.

It was a little lonely in that back row, if I’m honest. I’d shuffle around, continuously crossing and uncrossing my legs, leaning left and right, resting the back of my head against the cold brick wall behind me, trying to find a comfortable spot. I could never quite find it. 

While I did this restless shuffle, I used to fix my eyes on the ceiling of the church. It was covered in thin, wooden boards that ran left to right. 

I would try to count each of them to pass the time. I don’t think I ever did finish the count, though God knows I tried. 

It always smelt a little damp, like the doors had been kept shut since the day the church was built. But some days, I could smell lavender soap, and I’d know that there had been a good turnout for morning Mass that day.

By the end of primary school, I decided the ‘whole Confirmation, prayers, Catholic-guilt shebang’ just wasn’t my gig. I was a bit of an anarchist, I guess. 

I had been baptised, did the whole puffy white dress thing for my Communion, even wore a robe and sounded the brass bell behind the altar, once or twice. But at 11, I put the foot down. And I told my parents that I wanted out.

Oddly enough, I was a bit nervous to tell my parents that I didn’t want to make my Confirmation. 

I hadn’t grown up in a religious house. We went to Mass on Christmas Eve; sometimes. We’d tick the box for Catholic on the census. 

And that was where the religiosity ended. It never particularly bothered me, until I started tuning into the messaging in Mass and in my Catholic school. 

I didn’t like being told that I was born with Original sin. 

I didn’t like telling a man that I didn’t know about my sins at confession, for him to ask if I was sorry, and tell me that I would be forgiven if I said a decade of the rosary. 

I never really bought into the idea that I was a sinner. I was 11. I’d just make them up. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned’: I accidentally walked through the house with dirty runners on”, was my go-to. 

I had some unshakable beliefs as a child, God just wasn’t one of them. The bunny that brings me chocolate, yes. But a belief that I had to feel guilt and shame, and dislike myself in some way, in order to be ‘good’, no. I didn’t buy it. 

I never liked hearing the myopic and exclusive ramblings of a priest that didn’t believe in same-sex marriage. Even then, I remember looking around the class, and thinking about how that would make any of the children feel in my class who weren’t straight. 

I never really came out of Mass feeling like I wanted to go back, and I think that says a lot.

So, I opted out, causing a bit of commotion. Some of the teachers weren’t too pleased, and they made that clear. I had got notions. 

It was a small school, so it didn’t take much to get the cogs in the gossip machine turning. 

I really remember the two teachers who told me they respected me for it, because then I knew I had some allies on the inside. And when you’re sitting on your own in the back of the church, you want an ally.

I’ve become more aware of the horrors suffered by people at the hands of the Church. I never liked being a part of it. But now, I’m so glad that I’m not. 

Counting those wooden beams on the ceiling of my local church was more meaningful than I realised. 

I wasn’t sold on shame as a means to ‘goodness’. But now, not being a part of the Church means so much more to me than that. 

I don’t go to Mass. Don’t hear the teachings of an institution that has never been brought to real justice for the lives it destroyed. 

And I’d count those wooden beams again and again, over participation in that. Any day.