Looking back, it seems to me that being Catholic meant that I got dressed up, sang in church on Sundays and had a kind attitude towards the poor. All in all, it was a safe bubble of existence.
The first time my Catholic faith was challenged was about four years ago, just months after my family had arrived in Canada. I was a bright-eyed 18-year-old, excited and nervous about building a new life in this alien land. One day I met my cousin’s wife over coffee.
After we chatted about family, relationships, school and everything in between, she went on to share her thoughts and feelings about the Catholic Church. I remained silent as she explained why the Catholic Church was wrong about what it taught and how its many atrocities stand as a testimony against it.
As I went home that day I found myself struggling with the human brokenness within the Church and began to question how something that was initiated by Christ could be such a poor reflection of Him. As I went on with life at a secular university, I began to question if institutional religion had anything to offer me.
It seemed to me that there was a kinder, more inclusive language around a Jesus spirituality rather than this Catholic faith and tradition. After all, could the conservative Catholic Church speak to the unique ways in which I experienced God, or was the Church trying to fit me into a mould as a docile, subservient member of its faithful?
I came to the University of British Columbia in the hopes of studying economics, but that changed after taking a course in First Nations and Indigenous Studies.
Decolonization and the Church are words that do not normally go together and I am still learning about what it means to stand in this tension.
In difficult moments, it is Jesus who consoles me and I still struggle, feeling like I belong to a community where people question the way power, privilege and pride intersect in a way that mars the face of Jesus.
The questions and doubts arise and float away. The answers are hard to find because the questions are challenging ones. But as a friend of mine who is preparing to be a priest pointed out, I am not alone.
Historically, St. Teresa of Àvila offered dissent and challenged the Church, and asked difficult questions. Now, she is considered a Doctor of the Church. Perhaps, this will provide some solace to this international student searching for belonging, identity and a sense of home.
(Dsouza, 22, is a fourth-year First Nations and Indigenous studies student at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C.)