Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

It has been eight years since my last (mandatory) confession.

I am 26 now. No longer a Catholic school student. No longer graded on repentance. I have been freely and proudly sinning since 2018, and I must say, I’m thriving.

Ah yes. Catholic middle and high school.
Where tuition costs more if you’re not already a member of the church (salvation, apparently, had a membership fee).
Where 99.5% of the students are white and 100% of the teachers are white.
Where cleavage is a moral crisis and gayness is a lifestyle choice… as long as you never live it.

Sex? Sin.
Condoms? Bigger sin.
Premarital sex? Absolutely not.
Safe premarital sex? How dare you attempt to block God’s plan with man-made rubber.

Who are you to interfere with divine sperm trajectory?

But don’t worry! Our standardized test scores were stellar. Top in the state. Thankfully, state exams never included health education. We would’ve had to answer using our three-day crash course in “Theology of the Body.”

This was delivered by a 60-year-old man who separated the boys and girls because, obviously, they cannot learn about reproduction in the same room without spontaneously reproducing.

In those three sacred hours we learned:

1. My classmate with large breasts was “a distraction,” even in a polo shirt to both her fellow students and faculty.
2. The boy in my choir group could technically think he was gay, as long as he never acted on it. Celibacy builds character. The priesthood was floated as a career path.
3. And this, he held up one singular wrapped condom, was sinful because it prevented sperm from fulfilling its divine destiny.
   

“Even if you are having premarital sex,” he explained, “it is not your right to block God’s will.”

I remember thinking: God has a lot riding on teenage impulse control.

Then there was mandatory confession. Participation counted toward your grade. Salvation, apparently, was GPA-weighted.

And of course, the annual school-day protest against Planned Parenthood. Classes canceled. Signs distributed. Minors deployed. Three of us refused. Three out of hundreds.

So we were placed in a classroom with a chaperone, a pro-Vatican news article equating non-protesters with murderers, and a mandatory essay assignment explaining why we understood our moral failure. Ten percent of our grade depended on this very repentance.

I don’t remember what I wrote. I do remember being 16 and furious.

But the education was excellent, I’m told. Clearly. Just look how witty I became.

Excellent enough to excuse a boy who raped his girlfriend because “his grandma had just died.” Excellent enough to tell a freshman her father died of cancer because he was a sinner. Excellent enough to deny memorial T-shirts for a student who died by suicide because “suicide is a sin.” (Though, to be fair, the Church has since updated its policy. Branding matters.)

And let us not forget the uniform enforcement: polos and khakis, carefully monitored to prevent adolescent collarbone scandal.

If you’re wondering whether I would send my future children there for the academic rigor alone, I would rather homeschool them with Wikipedia and vibes.

To be clear: I am not anti-faith. I am anti institutions that weaponize faith against children.

There is a difference.

One teaches morality. The other grades it.

Now, this essay may never see daylight. My mother might faint. The Vatican will not care. I am far too insignificant for ecclesiastical litigation.

But I will say this: If your theology requires the humiliation of teenage girls, the silencing of gay boys, and the moral outsourcing of reproductive health to divine sperm logistics, perhaps the problem isn’t the children. Perhaps it’s the curriculum.

It has been eight years since my last confession. I do not miss apologizing for existing.

Amen.