In a god we trust

When I was ten years old, 

     as I was praying during Mass 

performing my duties 
     as an altar boy 
in the basement church 

St. Rita of Cascia, 

kneeling before the raised altar, 
    the gold cross hanging above it, 
the smell of incense wafting around me, 

the Irish priest 

draped in his gold and white silk vestments, 
     the strong urge of spirit enveloping me. 

I decided that I, too, was going to be a priest. 

This Puerto Rican-Dominican boy 

     would make his parents proud

they would be able to share with the rest of the clan that their prayers were answered, 

their faith in their god, 

     and 

the saints 

    and 

blessings of the heaven above 
would be certified. 

A son as a priest 
     would be their reward 

all their hard work 

     and 

religious servitude.

I know what you’re thinking

     What does a ten-year-old boy know 

making a life-defining decision 
to be a priest? 

I would point to my cousin, 
     entered a convent at a young age 

(in her teens) 

     and 

became a Catholic nun 

     (though she later left to marry a Jewish man) 

At the age of thirteen, I entered Saint Albert’s Junior Seminary in Middletown, New York, seventy-two miles northwest of the Bronx, New York, in the most rural area of the state full of dairy farms. 

The first four years were equivalent to any high school except in this isolated all-boys school, your entire purpose for being was to be trained in the fine arts of catholic dogma and practices so that one day you would go on to college 

     and 

the novitiate 

     and 

priesthood, where you would then be dispersed all around the world to minister to the young, the old, the sick, the weak, the gullible, in the hope that you would convert millions of people to Catholicism 

     and 

devotion to the pope in Rome.

Mass every day. Religious study every day. Study hall. Meditation. Quiet time. Praying time. No asking too many questions time. 

There was time to question who this thirteen-year-old from the South Bronx who appeared a little darker than the rest of the boys, some of whom asked, 

What the hell are you doing here with the rest of us friendly white    people? 

     They didn’t wait for an answer. 

All that mattered was they were white, 

     and 

this boy (meaning me) wasn’t white. 

     And they let me know it.

For nearly the first two years of high school, I tried to be just like everyone else. 

Despite being called Pancho (another story) 

     and 

a pejorative word used against Puerto Ricans, 
which I refuse to dignify now by repeating it on paper, I concluded in my second year that I didn’t need to suffer quietly at the hands of young people that I was convinced were no better than me. 

At the dawn of the Civil Rights era in America, 
the March on Washington, 

     and 

the terror of southern brutality against Freedom Riders captured by television, 

     I decided to escape.

The Escape

I was kneeling 
     in the pew section 

reserved for the high school sophomores 
     surrounded by the ostentatious glory 

of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 
     at Saint Albert’s Junior Seminary 

dressed in my Sunday best, 
a black suit, 
white shirt, 
black tie, 
black shoes, 
my black hair 

oily from too much pomade, 

parted on the right 
     with a slight wave of hair 

on the left rolled back like a small pompadour, 

a style popular in 1964 with Puerto Rican-Dominicans. 

I prayed for forgiveness 

for all the impure thoughts 

I had granted myself during the Easter break 
     when I slow danced 
with a brown-skinned Puerto Rican girl 

     in her tight pants 

in the painted blue apartment 
with the plastic-covered sofa 

     and 

Puerto Rican flag 
     draped alongside 
the picture of Jesus 

with his red heart glowing in 3D 

with no witnesses to the carnal thoughts 
     floating between us 

as I pressed my body against hers. 

The unexpected physical reactions 

     (I had never been this close to a female before) 

flowed through my fifteen-year-old virgin groin. 

I was embarrassed, 
joyful, 
     and 
unable to process what I should do next. 

I mean, I was studying to be a priest. 

I had told myself 
     this feeling flowing through me was corrupt.

Now, 
     kneeling in the seminary chapel 

a week after my return 
from the Easter break, 

I prayed for direction 
     seeking it inside the marble altar 
underneath the gold crucifix, 

knowing
    this would be my last day 

at Saint Albert’s. 

I would blame it 
     on finding my hormones 
because I met a girl, 

but I knew the real reason. 

The girl was a cover story. 

In my heart and soul, 

the truth was that I could no longer tolerate 

being beaten down 

by my fellow seminarians 
     into an angry, 
confused, 

     and 

prophetically anti-Catholic refugee 
from the hypocrisy of Catholicism 

     and 

religion. 

I told myself 
     if this is what they accept as Catholicism 

while teaching peace and love, then forget it

Afterword

It took me years to recover from the PTSD (we didn’t know what that meant back then), but not before I turned to the religion of drugs in the sixties, man. 

You escape from one cult of immersion in fantasy to another cult of immersion in another fantasy. It was all the same.

Genuflect before some imaginary power you think is higher than you in search of an answer to escape the real world around you, and all you end up with is emptiness because, in the end, what you must only believe in to make it through the day is yourself. 

Brain. Knowledge. Wisdom. 

And the faith that you will know how to use it to escape the mumbo jumbo of a cult following dogma and service to the invisible fantasy they call a god to make it through today.

Last Word

My life changed, but I won’t lie, I was changed forever. At the dawn of the exploding sixties, I learned to challenge the status quo, for better or worse. I do not regret attending St. Albert’s Junior Seminary for the intellectual or life lessons. They set the stage for the life that followed.