Attending Catholic School As A Non-Catholic

For nine years, I went to a small Catholic school in San Francisco. I got a lot out of my religious education, and I’m not even religious! It really shaped who I am today. When people find out I went to Catholic school, they usually assume it was a weird experience for me. They ask questions like, “Did you have, like, Jesus time?” “Um. I guess,” I tell them. It’s called religion class.  And actually, less than half my classmates were Catholic. I sat in the same classroom with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and other non-religious people. In religion class, we were expected to talk about our beliefs. And because discussions were open to everyone’s ideas, my peers and I learned to respect one another, even if we didn’t agree. But that might be changing. This year, the head of the school, banned girls from being altar servers. You know, the priest’s assistants during Mass. He said, they’d never be priests, so there’s no point. That upsets me because it goes against everything I learned while I was there. That we have something to learn from everyone, even if they’re different than us.