You Are Too Good A Catholic When…

You are too good a Catholic when: The first thing you do when you buy a skirt is measure the hemline to make sure it is only 1 ½ inches above your knee. This is the standard length for Catholic school uniforms and all skirts post-Catholic school because as all good Catholic girls know, it is sinful to show too much leg on most occasions. For those occasions when a little leg is necessary (speeding tickets), you buy skirts that you can easily roll at the waistband which allows you to raise the hem easily and discreetly.

Other wardrobe musts:  Turtle necks. Every good Catholic girl embraces the turtleneck as her best friend. There are rules of thumb for non-turtle neck wear and they are: For blouses–only the top button should be undone and for other necklines ( which are not recommended),  the  skin exposure should always fall above the point where the first hint of cleavage begins.  In other words, sexy is not the target look for any good Catholic female.

You are too good a Catholic when: You see three women walking together in a crowded public place and you make sure to say, “Good morning, Sisters” even though they are in regular civilian attire. This is called Nun Radar, and only those who have attended more than eight years of Catholic school acquire this extra religious antenna.  What this means is that the nuns do not have to be sporting the special hat or dress or even driving a station wagon.   Don’t underestimate the Nun Radar talent.  While it might  not provide monetary reward, it does entertain your non-Catholic friends who cannot believe this amazing sixth sense.

You are too good a Catholic when: There are six girls in your family and all have some form of the name “Mary” in their name. For those with only boys, the apostles’ names are the names of choice. If you are parents who do not like the name Mary (sacrilege) or want something different besides an apostle for a boy, you can choose a name from the Saint of the Day calendar. Good Catholics can figure out someone’s birthday by their saint names.  For Example, if you meet a guy named Iggy,  you can pretty much bet his birthday is July 31st, the feast day of St. Ignatius.  Scoff if you must, and while I agree that the Saint of the Day calendar does give us some odd names like Aloysius and Fibitius, it doesn’t annoy us with ridiculous names like Tiffany, Apple, Moon or Sunshine.

Lastly, on the kids thing…

You are too good a Catholic when: You consider having only one child a sin or your nine kids represent the only nine times you have had sex because as you know sex is only for procreation purposes as carnal desires are not a good thing and should be washed away with prayer and if that doesn’t work, pasta and cheesecake.

You are too good a Catholic when: You are asked about women in the clergy and while you cannot find a logical reason as to why women are not allowed to be priests, you still answer “Because only men were at the last supper.”  Hey, it’s the company line, and you find it incredibly stupid and misogynistic, much like the official stance on birth control, but you don’t want to oppose it for fear of going to hell or being excommunicated and shaming your mother.

You are too good a Catholic when: Your first thoughts after you hear someone has died are “Gee, I hope he got last rites.”  Yes, nothing changes your ticket to heaven into a ticket to purgatory faster than missing the final anointing.  I have a problem with this because if  God controls when our time is up, you would think He would be kind enough to make everyone’s demise at a time when a priest was around to do the final send off.

While we are on the death thing…

You are too good a Catholic when: Your loved ones are buried in a consecrated cemetery where the residents are separated according to ethnic backgrounds. In the past, I have heard people say things like, “Make sure you put me in the Irish cemetery” Or “He’s over there in the Italian part of the cemetery.”  Hell, you spent all your Sundays in church working for the ultimate reward only to learn that when your time has come you are parked next to someone who does not understand your cultural background.

And finally…

You are too good a Catholic when: After 20 years of being out of school, you can still translate Latin into English, and you can still recite the first verse of the Latin poem which goes:  Now, in Latin there are only five declensions. All the endings we must memorize and say. A is for the nominative, AE genitive and dative; AM accusative the Ablative Long A.

photo by Andybatt