Origin Story

Later that same year, Mrs. Dufaut had us turn to a certain illustration on a particular page in our text book—or workbook, rather, which was a paperback textbook that you owned rather than borrowed so that you could color in the pages when you got home. A work book had way more words per page than any authentic coloring book, though. Anyway, this illustration showed, on the top half of the page, a crooked line in the form of a stairway, from the bottom left to the upper right corner. Underneath were explanatory comments and some of those infernal quiz questions they always hit you up with, no doubt. On the bottom step of the stairway sat a rock; on the next higher step, a plant, probably a flower in a pot; up one more step, a little puppy dog; higher still, a baby; and on the highest step was what they were calling a “baptized baby.” (As I recall, this was the first of the lessons on the Seven Sacraments, and Baptism was the first of the seven.) The baptized baby sat highest on the stairway, then, and closest to the sun, or to some sun-like light source emitting rays from “up-right” (get it? “upright”—har, har). These rays were probably supposed to represent the Deity; maybe there was some old guy’s face with a beard up in that corner, too, looking down.

Of course the baptized baby looked a whole lot like the unbaptized baby, and I don’t remember how in particular the illustration distinguished the two other than by the proximity to the light, or, what, to heaven, I guess it was supposed to be. But I realized right away that it must have been an old work book, from the days when cousin Cathy was in first grade, long before the Second Vatican Council. Because I knew even at the age of five or six what John XXIII knew: that God did not play favorites. He just was not mean like that. He was ecumenical. 

The coolest thing we learned about the Catholic church, though—and this, too, came from Mrs. Dufaut that very first year of catechism—was that the front door was never locked. Everyone had to be allowed in, whether you were Catholic or not, 24/7, anytime you needed to come in to say a prayer, light a candle, hide out from the cops, whatever. Yes, even in the middle of the night. And this was true for every Catholic church all over the world! I remember riding bikes down to St. Mary’s around dawn one morning to see if it was true, and sure enough, no one was up, no one was around, and the front door in fact was unlocked! In cities where there might have been criminal gangs or roving bands of madcap youths, like in movies with the Little Rascals and the Bowerie Boys, they may have had to lock the church door at night, but there would always be someone on call to open it for you, yes, even at two a.m. I had seen The Wizard of Oz by this time, so I could picture pulling on some cord, ringing a doorbell, or reading the sign that said “Bell Out of Order—Please Knock” or whatever, for the sacristan to open up for you. Sacristan was a word I would learn later, with The Hunchback of Notre Dame—who was, in fact, the sacristan of Notre Dame de Paris, may she rest in peace. The sacristan is the one who opens up when no one else is around to do so.

An equally cool thing about Catholicism was that not only was everyone welcome all the time, but you too were welcome all the time, no matter how you happened to look that day! I remember asking (and this later happened): If you’re out riding bikes and lose track of the hour and all of a sudden you hear a distant chime and realize it’s time for mass, and it’s the last mass of the day, but you’re in your sweaty shorts and t-shirt and your hair is all gunky, should you go home to shower, change, and maybe arrive at mass late or even miss the service entirely, or should you just scoot over on your bicycle to get there on time, all gunky and gooey and gross? And the answer astounded me, but made absolute sense, since missing mass even once was a mortal sin you could never be forgiven for (and which therefore would damn you for all time): God didn’t actually care about what you looked like, or if you were sweaty or not, or how fancy your clothes were, or how gunky your hair was, or even how long your hair was (which would matter a lot in America, of course, within just a few years), because when you went to church, you went with body and soul, and it was the soul that God was far more interested in! Of course we had learned about the erudite and elusive concept of soul along with sin several lessons back, so this part of that day’s catechism I had no problem with. And I still remember Mrs. Dufaut’s voice saying this to sum it all up: “All are equal in the eyes of the Lord.” Wow. Equal. Like the Declaration of Independence!

Later, I realized that this probably made God a socialist, or a communist, or both. Which was incredibly difficult to wrap one’s ahead around during the so-called Cold War and the Vietnam so-called War (neither of which were declared wars, of course, so I resist standard terminology—same as I did with so-called original sin; yes I know this can be exhausting, but imagine being me, and be glad you aren't). But that truth, too, made sense. I knew from the folk song I can still sing to this day on that LP: “Whatsoever you do to the least of your bro-o-thers, that you do unto Me.” (It’s in 3/4 or 6/8 time, by the way, with the syllables ev-, least, that, and Me on down-beats, in case you want to sing along with me and the LP.) It’s a pretty great line from (so-called) Scripture to keep in mind, especially when trying to help out the current crop of Americans, don’t you think? Of course today, “brothers” doesn’t fly, so when this folk melody recurs to me as an earworm from time to time, I replace the four syllables “your bro-o-thers” with “humanity.” Four syllables—works better with the actual melody! My revised version still comes from so-called Scripture, it’s just an improved translation.

And with John XXIII, in the aftermath of Second Vatican, the other great thing about Catholicism, maybe the greatest: improvement—and self-improvement—was what it was all about. In other words, the Catholic church itself was a lot like us, especially us kids: a work-in-progress. And it was indeed progressing, with Pope John there. But he could probably use a little help.

By the way, because not all masses were in the vernacular, I could also spout a good bit of Latin for you, yes, even at age five, though I will confess it took a year or two, maybe more, for me to realize that the Latin phrases meant the same as the English ones used for the vernacular services.

But notwithstanding all that was cool about Catholicism, and all that was lacking, more importantly I learned a simple, glaring truth about the world I lived in: that not everything grownups would try to tell us was credible, or even anywhere close to being true. I suppose being exposed to those four-syllable words—and five (ec-u-men-ic-al)—affected my five-year-old brain, and convinced me that I knew what I knew, that I was right and they were wrong when they were in fact wrong and I was in fact right. The latent radical mind was already under construction. A revolutionary mind. Like John XXIII’s. But unlike his, mine suspected that there was probably a lot of wisdom in shutting up about what I knew to be right and true. Most of the time, at any rate. But maybe not all of the time.

Like, for instance, now.