Tiny Demons

We send The Daughter to CCD. For the uninitiated, CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It is. It’s where you send your kids if you’re Catholic but don’t attend a parochial school. It’s religion class. I attended when I was a kid and I turned out okay. (Didn’t I?)

I think it’s good that Mrs. Wife takes them to church and gives them a spiritual foundation. Later on, when they get older, they can make up their own minds as to whether they want to continue to embrace church teachings or do as I did and reject Catholicism. I predict that they will become, what I refer to as, Chinese menu Catholics. About 90% of Catholics are Chinese menu Catholics. My mom was one. You pick and choose which aspects of church doctrine you are comfortable with, but reject the silly stuff. Most Catholics don’t feel that birth control is a sin. Divorcees stand in line for communion. For many years, you weren’t supposed to eat meat on Friday, but so many people ignored that one that *presto!* it’s no longer a sin. I believe that most Catholics would love to see women enter the priesthood. I would.

I was surprised to discover that The Daughter's CCD class was taught by a student from the local Catholic high school. I was always taught by either nuns or parents. I think my mom even taught classes for a while. It seemed to me that leaving some poor high school girl to the tender mercies of a room full of 9-year olds was unfair but, apparently, she’s a whiz with kids and it works.

You know what happens when there’s a substitute teacher, right? Bedlam! Except that this evening, it wasn’t the students who rioted. Their usual beloved teacher was out sick so she was replaced by two mean girls from the Catholic high school. They proceeded to tear the class apart. They made fun of one kid's name and told some poor girl she was a nerd. They immediately spotted the class hellion, a kindred spirit, and bonded with him. He performed a profanity-laced rap song which the girls recorded on their phones. It’s probably up on YouTube right now. It’s the first time The Daughter heard the word “fuck” so now THAT cat’s out of the bag. After his rapping, he told my daughter’s friend that he was going to “...put my foot up your ass.” Nine years old! It was about as far away from the teachings of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John as you can get.

The next morning, Mrs. Wife wrote a fantastic, scathing letter to the director of the church and CCD program. Apparently, they were deluged with similar letters. As Daughter was relaying this, I got angrier and angrier. I mean, scary angry. Don't make me elaborate. This sort of thing is going to happen with increasing frequency as she gets older. I'm worried about my self control. Or lack thereof. I'm not a tough guy. I'm liable to get my ass kicked pretty good.