I was born to church-going Catholic parents with enthusiastic hopes for my future as a Catholic, following in the family tradition. Many would say that I was a Catholic child, but I reject that wording for a few reasons. There is no such thing as a “Catholic child,” “Muslim child” or a “Jewish child,” there are only children born to Catholic, Muslim and Jewish parents. If I ever could have been considered a Catholic child, I was never a very good one. I always had big questions and concerns that most children were stifled about. Those questions lead to an early rejection of religious establishment, followed by the existence of god.
My indoctrination began in first grade at the local church once or twice a week. I eagerly received my first communion in second grade; around the time I learned the truth about Santa Claus. These weekly religion classes continued, and by third grade, I felt the irritation of doubt. I always perceived biblical stories to be made up in order to teach a lesson. I never realized that the Bible was supposed to be an historical account of events. When I figured out that these were supposed to be real such as Noah’s arc, I began to question the stories.
The first major trigger of my dissent was the child molestation scandals going on at them time. Every week as I was reluctantly dragged to church, I would hound my family with questions about why any real god would let this happen to children. I asked them why the pope and bishops tried to cover it up. I started to deny everything in anger, and my parents brushed it off as a phase. By the end of the third grade I was already angry about religion.
I calmed down for a while, but I still had occasional arguments with my parents about the existence of god. Around sixth grade my parents gave me an option to stop attending religion classes for confirmation. I decided that I might be too naive to make that decision, and I continued on to get confirmed as David Edward “James” Mazza.