How growing up Catholic taught me that kindness, curiosity, and questioning can coexist.

Believe it or not, the thing that radicalized me wasn’t a protest, a college philosophy class, or a fiery activist speech.
It was Catholicism.

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, let me explain.

I was raised Catholic—from the age of three through seventeen, I went to parochial schools. We’re talking plaid skirts, daily prayers, church assemblies, and nuns who could command silence with a single look. I even served as an altar server—yes, one of those kids in robes carrying candles and a big cross, helping set the altar for Communion.

When I was in elementary school, I remember a woman who came to Mass every Sunday. She was a little different—disheveled, sometimes muttering to herself. I don’t know if she was homeless, but I do know she struggled with mental health issues. Yet she was welcomed. No one turned her away. She was part of the congregation like everyone else.

My mom converted to Catholicism around that same time. She was the one who took me to church each week, and when they realized she wasn’t confirmed, someone suggested she go through the process so she could fully participate. It wasn’t about exclusion—it was an invitation to belong. At that point in our lives, when money was tight and emotions sometimes heavy, that sense of belonging mattered deeply.

Sundays meant bake sales after Mass, where my neighbor always brought the best treats. There was food, laughter, and the comfort of community—something steady when the world outside didn’t always feel that way.

And it wasn’t just about what happened inside the church. Even as kids, we were taught that faith meant doing. We walked to raise money for the poor, collected food for shelters, and gathered coins for UNICEF. We made cards for nursing home residents and visited them around the holidays. If memory serves, my class even contributed a square to the AIDS Quilt in Washington, D.C. (yes, I’m that old). Compassion wasn’t theoretical—it was practiced.

And acceptance wasn’t just something we talked about; we saw it every day. I had a classmate who lived with two moms and her dad. My brother had a classmate whose dad transitioned. Both families were active in our church and school community, fully welcomed and included. Looking back, that was my first real example of what unconditional belonging looked like.

And Christmas? Christmas was magic. The pageants, the candlelight, the nativity story told year after year—it was my first real exposure to the magic of oral storytelling and the beauty of ritual. Maybe that’s where my lifelong love of narrative began: in the school gymnasium, filled with folding chairs, paper angels, glittered halos, and kids who forgot their lines.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When I was a little older, a visiting bishop came to perform the Confirmation Mass because the diocesan bishop refused to do it. Why? Because our parish allowed female altar servers. Even at that young age, something about that contradiction struck me. We were taught that we are all children of God, yet somehow, some of us weren’t allowed at the altar.

By high school, Catholicism was still shaping me—just in unexpected ways. I remember a service where the nuns played Joan Osborne’s What If God Was One of Us? over the speakers. That song—raw, human, and questioning—wasn’t what you’d expect from a conservative environment, but there it was, echoing through the chapel.

In twelfth grade, we studied world religions. We compared beliefs, rituals, and sacred texts. I read the Bible cover to cover. I saw patterns, metaphors, and the common threads of compassion that tie humanity together. And even as I began to question dogma, I realized something powerful: I had been taught to think critically, to look for meaning, and to see goodness—in others and in myself.

Years later, when I was in college completing my student teaching, that foundation hit me in a surprising way. I was assigned to a local public high school, and I wasn’t allowed to teach much of The Canterbury Tales—they were deemed “inappropriate” for twelfth graders. I was floored. I had learned all about Chaucer in high school. We knew Oedipus. We knew Lysistrata. In elementary school, we celebrated Kwanzaa right alongside the Christian holidays. My Catholic education had exposed me to big ideas, difficult questions, and different cultures—and somehow, that felt more open than what I found in the so-called “real world.”

And that is why it floors me to see Christianity weaponized today—to hear people say “this shouldn’t be taught” or “we need to ban that,” or to see those who are different treated as if they don’t belong. That wasn’t what I was taught. It wasn’t the ones who were different that we had to fear. We knew who the creeps were. Sometimes there was a nun or priest you just knew to keep your distance from.

We were taught about Stranger Danger, but honestly, we knew it wasn’t the strangers you had to fear. Still, we were taught what was appropriate, what was not, and what to watch out for. It wasn’t about living in fear—it was about being aware. And no favors are done for anyone when we try to shelter kids from that reality.

Because really, if we’re not preparing kids to think and to question, then what is the purpose of anything?

The hypocrisy I saw wasn’t in the scripture or in the faith itself—it was in people with narrow views, those who twisted belief into a tool for control rather than compassion. The faith I grew up with was about service, understanding, and community. It taught me that curiosity and kindness can coexist—that questioning doesn’t mean losing belief, but rather deepening it.

I no longer identify as Catholic—in fact, I now describe myself as a deist agnostic—but I can’t deny that Catholicism gave me my moral compass.

Because here’s the truth:
I still believe in service.
I still believe in compassion.
I still believe that all people are valued and worthy.

If that makes me radical, then so be it.

I was radicalized by nuns who told me to open my heart, by hymns that asked what it would mean if God was one of us, and by a faith that—despite its flaws—taught me the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And that’s a lesson I’ll never unlearn.