Special Edition Fall 2022: Submission: Without Distinction: Ex-Christians at St. Kate’s
By Fern Schiffer
Note: Some interviewees asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of this topic, and will be referred to by their initials.
One of the first things you learn in the first few weeks at St. Catherine University is how this institution’s Catholic history and mission factor into the function of this University. One of the first real class readings I did for The Reflective Woman was on the founders and forerunners of St. Kate’s: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. This was the first time it had really hit me that I was going to a religiously affiliated institution. Even a couple of years ago, I would have been much more leery about it, given I had just come to terms with the fact that I was no longer Christian.
Deconstructing any former Christian beliefs, at least in my experience, is emotionally isolating. However, data shows that nobody goes through it alone. According to research done by Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Studies in 2018 and 2019, the number of American adults identifying themselves as Christian has dropped 12% over the previous decade, while those identifying themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” went up 9% from 2009 to 2019. Pew Research Center also broke down the data by age. While baby boomers who identified as Christians only fell by 6%, that number increases to 16% for millennials. It’s fair to say that atheism is growing more popular while Christianity is shrinking, especially among young people.
Given that data and my own history with leaving my religion, I started to think about how strange it is to be a freshly-minted atheist in a Catholic institution. Moreover, I started to reflect on my old faith and how I’ve changed. When I was very young, my family went to a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) church, but after moving to a new town we ended up part of a United Methodist Church (UMC) congregation.
After many years attending those churches, I came to a couple of moral conundrums. The first one was the biggest and most pressing: I was gay in a place that refused to love me for it. Luckily, I was brought up to understand and accept diverse genders and sexualities, but my church community was either silent or outright against it. Around that time, the UMC General Conference split over the question of allowing gay marriage and queer clergy. To this day my former church is still waffling as to which side they will take. I knew that my orientation wouldn’t change, and I figured that made me and Christianity basically incompatible. I started to distance myself from the congregation.
It wasn’t until after I had been calling myself an atheist for a few months that I heard the term “deconstruction.” Deconstruction, in this context, means the practice of dissecting and critiquing currently-held religious beliefs. In practice, I largely heard about deconstruction from online communities of ex-Christians who used the term to describe their process of leaving Christianity. It turns out a lot of deconstruction stories start moral conundrums similar to the one I had.
A. F. told me about how her former conservative Lutheran faith left her with moral problems of her own: “They condemn people who are queer and women in any places of power. They have very, very conservative and traditional values that I didn’t ever really question.”
A big driver of my own deconstruction was learning of different perspectives. When I first was allowed on social media as a young teenager, it was the first time I had heard of atheism or atheists having a community. It was also the first time I had been able to fully understand the philosophies behind other religions, all through the magic of the internet. Natalie Nemes ‘24 (English) echoed this sentiment when she explained her experience of downloading Instagram for the first time as a high schooler: “I’d say in particular, discovering queer theory through the internet was a big thing that influenced me.”
Deconstruction isn’t just for ex-religious people; many people end up deconstructing individual beliefs while maintaining faith. Kiara Gomes ‘25 (Fashion Design and International Studies), who is a practicing Catholic, told me about her experience at a Catholic conference: “I now look back on it and it’s so many problematic things, and I was just like, ‘Let me write this down.’ I see the journal and sometimes I’ll look back and I’m like, ‘Why would you want to be submissive?’”
St. Kate’s, as a Catholic university, carries with it a long and storied history of Christianity, not all of it rosy. However, when I first came here I was pleasantly surprised to find a campus that didn’t seem to have an overbearing culture of Christianity. I was further surprised to find a lot of Christian philosophy and theology in practice here that I agreed with. I’ve had over a year here to reflect on all of the aspects of my former faith, and while I can say conclusively that much of the internal and external politics of those institutions are reprehensible, I can also say that there is a lot for me to learn and take with me from that time in my life. For example, being raised Christian taught me the importance of gathering together and talking about what we believe and how we want to live. That’s an opportunity that’s a lot harder to find without faith.
When I asked my interviewees their thoughts on the Catholicism they have experienced here, we found a lot of common ground in the fact that we were pleasantly surprised to find that the mission and culture of this university is so welcoming. Nemes talked about how different it is here in comparison to her experience in Catholic grade school: “The Catholicism here is open to diverse perspectives in a way that the church I went to [in grade school] didn’t feel like it was.” A. F. told me about her thoughts on the Sisters: “I think . . . that their whole mission is . . . really commendable. I think it’s really great, what they do.”
The Catholic culture of St. Kate’s is a foundational pillar of the institution. Given how this faith practice has led the way for acceptance, empowerment and doing well by our dear neighbors, I think it is worth preserving and expanding upon. It took me a long time after my deconstruction to be able to go back and take stock of all the good Christianity that religion as a whole can bring, and much of my time at this campus has helped me be able to look back and learn. Though I am unlikely to ever consider myself a Christian again, I am now able to see how having a basis in faith can help foster a strong, healthy and kind community.
However, I don’t want to paint a picture that all is well in our institution. Gomes and I talked about how, despite the University’s commitment to equality and human rights, they still only allow heterosexual Catholic marriages in the chapel. “They’ll be like, ‘Oh, you can only get married here if you’re straight, and you went to school here, but more importantly, if you’re straight,’” she said.
When I was talking to A. F., one of the last questions I asked is if there is anything St. Kate’s should change in regard to their Catholic philosophy. I was surprised when she said that they should lean further into their founder’s mission of loving our dear neighbors without distinction. She had noticed many places where the University allowed distinctions to limit options and opportunities. A. F. pointed out how it manifests even in the infrastructure: “[Many of the dorms] don’t have elevators. If you’re trying to move furniture in your apartment, no go. If you’re disabled and want to access that apartment, no go.”
I came away from our conversation somewhat amazed that two ex-Christians had come to the conclusion that St. Kate’s would do well to lean more into their founding theology: I suppose miracles do happen.
