Wednesday, October 23, 2019 // The Statement
6B

M

y mom was standing on the front 
lawn of my best friend’s house sur-
rounded by hundreds of other par-
ents. I rushed into her arms, glad to be in the 
safety of her care. News helicopters whirred 
overhead as they passed through the grey sky, its 
dourness casting a shadow over the whole day. 
We were being evacuated from school, and being 
only in fourth grade at the time, I had no idea 
why. All I knew was that the quaint world of 
suburban New Jersey was no longer a safe place 
of serenity and security.
That day, 10 years ago, was the day the pas-
tor of my church, Father Ed, was found dead 
in the church rectory. He had been stabbed 43 
times, though my parents didn’t 
tell me that at the time. For 
the first few days after his 
death, I thought he died 
of natural causes, like 
all the old people in my 
town. There hadn’t been 
a murder in Chatham in 
over 50 years, and surely my 
Catholic school wasn’t the 
place for that trend 
to be broken. 
But, unfor-
tunately, 
it 
was. 

That holy site — the center of my faith and moral 
creed — was violated. 
The santicity of the church was destroyed in 
that instant, its status as a place of comfort for-
ever lost. The man who was the gatekeeper of 
that community was taken from us. It seemed 
like no one was protecting its status as a place 
to feel in the presence of God. The one man in 
my life who I truly believed was devoted to God 
with all of his heart, and took that commitment 
as a priest seriously, was no longer there to pro-
vide me guidance. I truly thought he was God’s 
shepherd, leading his flock to the path of righ-
teousness. 
When he spoke on issues of Catholic morality, 
I felt he had full credibility. There was no out-
ward hint of hypocrisy, either in his intensity or 
his actions. Hearing him speak, I felt like I could 
actually follow God’s path and devote myself to 
Him. Without that voice in my life, the spiritual 
journey felt far lonelier and more difficult. How 
could I follow Christ if God took away from me 
the only holy man I knew? How could God let 
a good man who had done nothing wrong die a 
horrible death?
And so began my path of disillusionment with 
the Church, his death sparking a long chain 
of events that would seemingly pull me 
further away from my spiritual commit-
ments. What made Father Ed such a won-
derful man was not just his enlightening 
sermons; he put his homilies in succinct, 
clear terms that any follower could 
understand. While I certainly appreci-
ated the fact that Father Ed always had 
me home from Mass in under an 
hour, I felt like a shorter Mass 
allowed me a stronger grasp on 
the meaning of that day’s read-
ings. 
Soon after his death, Mass 
became longer, the homilies more 
drawn out, the singing more fre-
quent and seemingly extraneous. 
Even worse, the Vatican changed 
many of the responses in 2011 with 
an update to the Roman Missal, 
the series of sayings and responses 
that guide the Mass. Ironically, 
the Church was trying to make the 
responses more in line with the 
traditional Latin Mass, but instead 
it made the Mass harder to follow 
and it alienated people like me from 
participating. We now had to say 
“And with your spirit” in response 
to the priest saying “May the Lord 
be with you,” instead of respond-
ing “And also with you.” The Mass 
I had grown to look forward to had 
changed, adding insult to the injury 
of no longer hearing from 
Father Ed. The meaning of 
the Mass became muddled, 

and I was no longer as receptive to the speaker, 
since Father Ed wasn’t the one standing at the 
lectern.
The situation became much worse when I 
went to high school. I was separated from my 
tight-knit Catholic community for the first time 
since preschool and now attended school where 
most people were not Catholic and sometimes 
outwardly hostile to religion. In my 11th-grade 
world history class, we had to read a book in 
which the author argued that religion was just 
an ideology to bind people together; it had no 
higher moral purpose or reason for existence. I 
tried to argue that religion helped fill in the gaps 
for what science could not easily explain, like 
what existed before the universe was formed. 
The only person who came to my side argued not 
in favor of religion but by using a scientific argu-
ment. 
People tried to undercut my beliefs by using 
quotes from the Bible and arguing that Christi-
anity was just another system built to oppress 
women. Arguing in favor of my faith became a 
lonely fight, and it seemed like I never had a good 
answer. This was a situation where Father Ed 
surely would have known what to say.
It didn’t help that my process for receiving 
Confirmation had very little religious content. 
Instead of taking religion classes every Sunday, 
my church mandated an all-weekend retreat, 
which we spent mostly singing non-Catholic 
songs and eating candy. I was hungry for how my 
faith could add deeper meaning to my life, but 
instead, I felt unprepared to commit to the Cath-
olic Church as an adult. 
I wanted to answer the most pressing ques-
tion: How do I apply my faith to the challenges 
of modern life? I tried to answer that question 
myself by spending nearly 30 minutes in confes-
sion during that part of the retreat, harkening 
back to my fifth-grade days when I tried to be 
the last one to leave our quiet reflection time. 
But this time, I didn’t seem to find that meaning 
in my reflection. Instead, I felt empty.
Nowadays, there seem to be few links tying 
me to the Church. Sure, I still attend Mass, but 
only on the big holidays like Christmas and Eas-
ter, and mostly out of tradition. Last year was the 
first time I truly gave up something for Lent in a 
while. The pain of not being able to enjoy all of 
the great cuisine Ann Arbor had to offer, while 
strong, offered me the first deep connection to 
my faith in a long time. I felt like I truly made a 
commitment, and stuck to it for once, something 
I had lost in the mad dash of life. 
While I am hopeful this will one day lead 
me to commit more to my Catholic faith, those 
issues with the Mass remain, and every day it 
gets harder and harder to commit myself to the 
Church. Though I may not attend church much 
anymore, I still try to have the moral code of 
Catholicism guide me, even if I often fail miser-
ably. I just hope holy people like Father Ed can 
one day forgive me.

A loss of meaning

BY ALEXANDER COTIGNOLA, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY JACK SILBERMAN

