Red-Inked Retablos

Confessions of a Gay Catholic Boy

Confessions of a Gay Catholic Boy In May 2010 I made a special trip to México to baptize my nephew André. This was a trip made under duress because Lupe, my sister-in-law, insisted that her son be baptized before his first birthday. (Ten years before I went through the same pressure when I became my niece Halima’s godfather.) I never quite understood this self-imposed urgency because, on both occasions , I noticed that the ages of the other children getting baptized varied from newborn to young adult. When I pointed this out, Lupe balked and said, “And it looks ridiculous to have a child walk himself to the holy water!” My brother just looked at me from the other end of the pew and shrugged. In any case, the ceremony was brief and uneventful, except for that single moment during the candle-lighting ceremony, in which the godparents had to light the godchild’s just-blessed candle with the holy candle located at the altar. We godparents had a group giggle at the realization that we were all too short to reach the holy flame. No one seemed to read much into the faux pas, but I did: as usual, I thought to myself, the church and its unattainable expectations. The congregation continued to endure the sweltering heat for the sake of fulfilling the first of the seven holy sacraments. We zoned out through the sermon, sat and knelt through Mass, and stood for a few church hymns sung off-key. And then each family went home to party. At the González house, we ate a traditional Mexican meal, had a few beers, and called it a day. My brother and I sat around taking turns holding my nephew, who refused to relinquish the baby pope hat that was part of his christening outfit. Halima, in the meantime, went to her room to leaf through her catechism in preparation for her first communion. We see these church obligations as cultural, not religious, because my brother and I are not church-goers, nor do we come from a church-going family. We were, however, subjected to baptism, confirmation, and first communion. The Catholic mandates aren’t something we believe in, 16 Self-Portraits exactly, they’re just something we do—like celebrating the Day of the Dead and Three Kings Day. It’s the Mexican Catholic in us. The Mexican Catholic in me comes out during those rare occasions I set foot in a church. Apart from baptisms and first communions, which require too much godparent participation, I actually enjoy the serenity of a simple Sunday Mass, from the reading of the scriptures to the chants and prayers that I recall with accuracy whenever I hear others utter them around me. The familiar experience comforts me. I can’t say that I ever left the church because I was never fully committed to its teachings, and, in some ways, Catholicism has been very good to me; its imagery and vocabulary—rosary, crucifix, genuflection—continue to inspire and inhabit my writing. I actually think it’s a beautiful religion. Excepting the pedophile priests and the Vatican. That opinion is not my opinion as a gay man, it’s my opinion as a Mexican Catholic. Like many of my family members, I’ve grown increasingly disappointed in how the church has been chipping away at its own reputation, making chumps of all of us who continue to follow its tenets. It’s not that we ever thought the church was perfect, it’s just that we expected it to be a little more put together than the rest of us. It’s the hypocrisy of it that bothers me the most. I mean, at every wedding, the priest, a man who is not allowed to marry, stands up to give the bride and the groom marriage counseling. And we let it slide, accepting it as a slight flaw in Catholic procedure. When our local priest drinks a little too much or is amusingly effeminate, no one points it out or does anything about it. But this child molestation epidemic (and the refusal of the Catholic leaders to address it) is something else altogether. Interestingly enough, it’s the church itself that’s conflating homosexuality with pedophilia. To this day I’ve never heard any member of my family confuse the two, and it’s not out of respect for me because I’m not out to anybody except...