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Article: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT CATHOLIC.
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- February 11, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Portrait of a novelist
I am a Catholic by birth, third child and only daughter of two first- generation New York Irish Catholics who never paused to think twice (as they would have put it) about where or when or whether I should be baptized into the Catholic church (Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Albans, Queens, two weeks after my birth) or sent to Catholic schools (Saint Boniface School, Elmont, Long Island; Sacred Heart Academy, Hempstead), or whether Catholicism would ever become something less than essential in my life.
My family attended ten o'clock Mass every Sunday without fail, confession once a month on Saturday if the nuns hadn't taken care ...