My catholic Youth

Watching the Pope's visit to the US on CNN (hard to miss such event) made me think of my days as an altar boy in a little town buried in coffee plantations and green mountains with lots of caves to explore (before they splashed them with war mines in the early eighties).

I was born catholic as most Portuguese families before the end of Salazar's dictatorship. There was no exception for the provinces in Africa since they were under the same European rule. If you were not catholic it was OK, just couldn't tell your neighbors if you wanted to be part of society. My mother is a devoted catholic and so are some of my kids. I think it is okay to be part of a religious group for camaraderie and to have a sense of belonging. What is not okay is to think that anyone else is not "seeing the truth" and will probably burn in hell. Truth is a very personal thing and each of us have to find our own. I praise my younger daughter for being a devoted Catholic but I constantly remind her that there are many truths and that it is alright to explore other ways without feeling guilty about it.

There were three aspects I loved about being in church back in Africa. One was the old organ they had that sounded like angels in the sky, my first introduction to European music. The other was the voices of native people singing on Sundays. The third one was their library, the only one in town and a place where I spent many hours exploring. I used to snick in and quietly read page after page of the classics. It was my window to the rest of the world. No one new I was there. It was my sacred place. The other s.p. was the top of the mountain that surrounded the town of Gabela. There, the wind would whisper me stories of a world without war and greed, a world with lots of love for one another. I just didn't know that a few years later, that little town would the place where hundred of families would find their maker in a civil war created by the multinational powers.

tony araujo
4/20/08