My divorced father was humiliated weekly in our Catholic church. The Pope's announcement could change that
Technically, I’m Catholic. I was baptised, I made my communion, I was confirmed, and I’ve not been excommunicated yet. I was raised by one atheist and one fairly philosophical agnostic - my father - who acknowledged the validity of my doubt but embraced the ritual of church-going. More importantly, he embraced the ambivalence of what God is. I remember going through a militant teenage phase, reeking to high heaven of Richard Dawkins and the Beginner’s Guide to Existentialism, sitting in the car with my dad and saying that if we doubt even slightly that God exists, to live honest lives we must behave as though there is no God. Dad, more tolerant than most people would be confronted with a 15 year old in a Sum 41 hoodie claiming knowledge of the mysteries of the universe, paused a moment and replied: “Why can’t we live as if we don’t know?”