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One day, while our Māori Anglican dad was at work, our Pākehā Catholic mum rushed her brood off to the local priest and had us baptised.
Dad clammed up for a bit, but came around. He reckoned it was good we were “something.”
Next minute, we were off to weekly Catechism classes in preparation for our first Holy Communion.
I didn’t really get the Sacraments. I was busy trying to avoid a hiding from two bigger girls who obviously didn’t get it either.
There was a lot about religion I liked. Storytelling. Singing. Some of the nuns and priests.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That stuck with me.
Confession was stressful for me and my mates as 12-year-olds.
We’d agonise over trying to conjure up a couple of sins so we could at least hold a half-decent conversation with the mysterious man in the dark booth.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” I’d tremble after the tiny window slid back. I’d peer into the darkness at a pair of moving lips, wondering which priest it was.
“Um, I had some … bad thoughts?”
The poor priest must have been catatonic with excitement. Ten Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, then I was good to go.
You gotta love that about the Catholics.
Easing back
After I left the convent school, I started at Auckland University.
My mates and I would trot along dutifully to Te Unga Waka for Sunday Mass.
We were well programmed — for a while, anyway.
Late night parties in our garage tended to bugger up that sort of stuff. Jesus was gradually eased out by Bob Marley on high rotate. But we tried to hang in there.
During our big OE, my mate Erana and I bought some fragrant pink rosary beads in Barcelona, handmade by local nuns.
I remember approaching a couple of priests in the Vatican: “Excuse me, Father, can you please … ”
The first priest visibly recoiled.
The second brushed my outstretched hand away. They both rushed off, jabbering away in Italian.
“… bless these beads?” I mumbled into dead air left in their wake.
Standing there clutching my Spanish rosary beads, I looked down at my clothes and turned to my mate, “They thought I was a beggar.”
We surveyed a cacophony of stalls selling tea towels, T-shirts and coffee cups emblazoned with mugshots of the pope, and wondered why priests wouldn’t be kind to a beggar anyway.
My little bubble of religious fervour started to deflate right there on the steps of the world’s most famous Catholic cathedral.
Auckland also proved an intoxicating distraction to the Blessed Virgin.
Things accelerated on the party front, until one day I stopped going to Mass.
A lot more air hissed out as my law professors described how religion and law were such important tools in the colonisation of Aotearoa.
The professors put me off both.
Decolonisation was underway. I was slowly being de-programmed.
Meanwhile, some of the most influential people in my life were hard out social justice activists, and two happened to be ministers.
Reverend Rua Rakena (Methodist) and Canon Hone Kaa (Anglican), along with their Catholic friend Rob Cooper.
They despatched me to Manila the day after a coup to join a human rights programme for lawyers.
What an eye-opener.
My cousin: Bishop Max Mariu
But religion is tough to lose.
My cousin Max Takuira Mariu was the first ordained Māori Catholic bishop.
The pope referred to him as the Bambino Bishop because of his relative youth.
Max and I wrote long letters to each other.
I’d challenge church tikanga, he would send me cassettes and lyrics of old waiata tawhito.
Occasionally, I’d ‘fess up to stuff that would’ve made the priest’s ears perk up back in the day.
Nothing seemed to throw the bishop. He was that kind of guy.
The last time I was actively involved in Catholicism was when I asked Max to baptise my first child in the little Anglican church at Waitetoko marae.
I remember hearing him recite the Prayer of Exorcism to “cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil” over my baby boy.
Yeah, nah, I thought.
My relationship to Jesus continued to unravel inside that most lovely of churches. Continue reading
- Image: e-Tangata
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