When I am asked — I tell people I am a Recovering Catholic. :) Because as you said — being Catholic is a bit like being in the Mafia — you don’t ever really leave ‘the life’. I try to embrace the bits of it I hold in my psyche and the connection it gives me to my also deceased devoutly faithful mother. But the sins of The Church are too legend to for me to associate with on my own spiritual level. I need no Church to speak to The Universe. I have a faith in The Creator or Master Architect of our world. And faith that whatever Death carries us to is. Is.

Oddly I seem to be immune to guilt. I’m not sure if it was Catholic or Italian guilt overload as a child or the fact I’m an 8 on the ennegram scale. :)

Live your life. In the Now. Do it with all your heart. Now is all that matters — Let not our past define us. Otherwise The Church ‘wins’. And it will be a cold day in their proverbial hell before I let that happen. ;)

I loved your post. It was thoughtful and very well written. Thank you for sharing.