On my mothers side, they are all Irish Catholic (except for a few switcheroos some generations back, only for political reasons) back to the bog. I was raised RC and went to parochial schools. I was then sent off to a male only Catholic high school on the insistence of my grandmother. I was 14 years old, socially inept, never had a girl friend, usually never more than one or two male friends, and I grew up in a house that was full of books and no television. I read a lot, including the bible, time to time, for reference purposes. At CL (Cathedral Latin, the high school I was sent to), they had a demerit system; if you got 30 demerits you got expelled. Religion class was obligatory, and I enjoyed it immensely: there was a lay (hugely fundamentalist) religion teacher who asked stupid questions and I responded with footnoted answers. He hated that. Him: "The bible is absolutely true!" Me: "Noah's Ark is true?" Him: "Yes!" Me: "2 elephants?" Him: "Yes" ... Me: "2 ants?" Him: "yes" Me: "2 ant eaters" Him: "Yes!" Me: "those must have been the hungriest ant eaters you ever saw..." Him "Go to the office!". Fortunately my great-uncle, brother Nurthern, was vice principal at the time, so we held my demerits to about 28. Until English class, where we were supposed to write a paper about some biblical tripe. I did a very satirical (and probably abusive) essay and footnoted every assertion I made. You just can't make this shit up... Brother D, the english teacher, had me read it in front of the class so he could mock me and prove his points. Every time he tried, I indicated the footnote supporting my position. He lost his temper and slapped me across the face in front of the class. I've always been a counter puncher; I didn't hit him that hard, but there was a desk behind him and he landed on his head. He was out for about a half a minute at most. I was expelled from CL with high honors in sciences, lesser so in religion and english.
I went to public high school and met the first love of my life, a slashing beautiful intelligent blonde girl. She showed up when my grandmother was in town; clean, beautiful, well spoken, well dressed including the gold star of David around her neck. My grandmother freaked and yelled at my mother, who told me I had to tell the priest in confession. I went to church and the only priest on duty was an ancient old misogynist, bigoted, old fart who told me: "You have to give her up or don't come back.". Me: "OK". Next sunday, my mother bangs on my bedroom door: "you have to get up for church" Me: "He said not to come back"
I've only been back for weddings and funerals and that is of respect for the people, not the church.