The First Cracks in the Foundation
From the time I could comprehend rules, I understood that Catholicism was structured like a bureaucratic process. Follow the steps, check the right boxes, and secure your passage to heaven. It wasn’t just faith—it was a system. But from a young age, I had trouble reconciling the logic of it all.
The first thing that didn’t sit right with me was the mechanics of sin and redemption. A person could be cruel, selfish, even commit atrocities, but as long as they confessed and repented in time, they were good to go—clean, ready for heaven. Meanwhile, someone who lived decently but missed a key step—died with a single unconfessed sin—was condemned for eternity. The absurdity of that was never clearer to me than in my own house.
Every Sunday, my father would take me to confession. He’d walk into that booth, say his piece, receive his absolution, and emerge spiritually reset. And then, hours later, he’d be tearing into my mother over something trivial, completely indifferent to any sense of morality he’d supposedly reaffirmed that morning. I saw it play out, week after week, and the hypocrisy of it sat with me. It was not the behavior of a man preparing for eternal paradise.
The Horror of Eternity
I had my first existential crisis before I even knew what the word meant. I was about eight or nine years old, lying in bed, thinking about forever.
Heaven, they said, lasted for eternity. That was the promise. That was supposed to be the reward. But the more I thought about it, the worse it sounded.
Forever.
Never-ending.
No escape.
It terrified me. Even at that age, I understood that part of what made life meaningful was that it ended. Things mattered because they were finite. A perfect, unchanging eternity? That sounded more like a punishment than a reward. I pictured myself trapped in a place where every day was the same, where nothing changed, and it stretched on forever. That wasn’t an attractive offer. That was hell in disguise.
I worried about it constantly. Not just whether I’d get there, but what would happen if I did. I wasn’t afraid of damnation—I was afraid of the reward itself.
The Unfairness of It All
At sixteen, I was still playing the game. I was already six feet tall, working as a butcher at Capital Stores in Dartmouth, and I still went through the motions. I still followed the rules because I believed I had to. I didn’t yet know there was an alternative.
But then came the moment that shattered the last piece of my forced faith.
It was something my father told me, clearly, with no room for misinterpretation. He said:
“If you have an impure thought and die without confessing it, you will go to hell.”
He meant every word.
It wasn’t just about actions. It wasn’t just about behavior. The thought itself was enough. A fleeting moment, something involuntary, something no one could control—that was enough to condemn a person for eternity.
That hit me like a hammer. It broke everything.
Because what he was saying—what the Church was saying—was that I had no control over my fate. It didn’t matter what I did, how I lived, or who I was. One stray thought, one unintentional moment of human nature, and I was damned.
That was when I realized the rules were impossible. If my salvation depended on something so arbitrary, so uncontrollable, then what was the point? Why even try? If I was doomed by default, then the whole system was rigged.
The Final Detachment
By seventeen, I had left home, joined the army, and was experiencing the first real separation from the world I grew up in. And then came the moment that sealed it.
It was my first Sunday in training, and we were standing in formation outside our barracks, lined up in the hallway at attention, doors open, waiting for the drill sergeant to make his rounds.
He walked down the corridor, looking each of us in the eye. Then he barked,
“You fucking losers—who wants to go to church this morning?”
Without thinking, I raised my hand.
It was instinct. Routine. Automatic compliance.
And that was the moment I knew I was done.
They marched me to the front, where the Sergeant and the corporals stood. They looked me over, inspected my uniform, pointed out deficiencies, mocked me for volunteering. Then they ordered me to drop and give them ten push-ups.
Somewhere in the back-and-forth, I realized something: I didn’t have to do this anymore.
This wasn’t about defiance. This wasn’t about rebellion. This was an opportunity—one they didn’t even realize they were giving me.
I could let it go.
And so I did. I never went to church again. Not because they beat me down—but because I finally admitted to myself that I didn’t want to be there. And now, I didn’t have to be.
From that moment on, I was done with faith. I would still show up at funerals. I would still acknowledge the rituals when required. But belief? That was over.
I walked away that day. And I never looked back.
Campaign of Expression 