My Catholicism lapsed long ago, so why can’t I let go of the relics?

Last year, during a routine spring clean, my partner pulled out a small metal box – about the size of a palm – nestled in between some long forgotten clothes and bed linen. It once housed aftershave lotion, but today it contains mementos from my childhood, bits and bobs I have mostly forgotten about.

A USB stick, some colourful buttons, a special edition Phar Lap coin, currencies from old European nations. A slim, silver watch, and an envelope filled with religious images of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Caroline Zielinski’s treasured cards.

These holy cards (sometimes called prayer cards) are a relic of Roman Catholic folk culture, typically depicting saints or religious scenes with prayers on the reverse, given out at various religious events, such as funerals, communions and confirmations.

My maternal grandmother, a very religious woman, gave them to me, tucking the saints into letters and birthday cards throughout my childhood.

My partner looked at the envelope in surprise before putting it in the toss pile.

“NO!” I screamed, grabbing it. “Why would you throw out Jesus?” He looked at me, dumbfounded. “But … you don’t believe in God?”

It’s true, I am not particularly religious. It’s been years since I’ve set foot in a church, and even longer since I’d started questioning the Catholic faith I grew up with.

Attending a high school that promoted critical thinking helped dent my faith, which was all but extinguished by the time I reached university.

But sometimes logic doesn’t explain the hidden feelings and belief systems we carry in our hearts. I don’t believe that only people of faith hold the key to immortality and goodness, but I also can’t claim to be an atheist (I’m just not convinced humanity has worked out the universe).

So, this leaves me in what Australian Catholic University senior research fellow, Dr David Newheiser, calls the “middle space” between religion and atheism.

Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian community in Texas, Newheiser was excommunicated in his late teens following a lengthy heresy trial by the leaders of the church.

His severance from the practical aspects of religion, as well as his family, led him to study religion from a scholarly perspective to process what had happened.

“I had a rough period after the excommunication: I was young and vulnerable, and my family and I were estranged for a time,” Newheiser tells me. “But I realised while I wasn’t part of this community any more, it was still inside me and that I still cared about it, even though I felt alienated by it.”

Religion, Newheiser believes, is more about practice, identity, the communities people are part of, the symbols and iconography than anything else. These are what make religion real to so many people.

“If you broaden the scope of reflection in religion to include practice and feeling, it opens a more interesting way to explore the middle,” he says.

As we talked, I slowly began to make sense of my attachment to envelope-Jesus. I may not subscribe to the rigid teachings of the Catholic Church, but I can’t help but feel warmth when I recall the Sundays of my childhood that were spent sitting quietly for one hour. Sure, it was boring (although I did like the singing), but what happened after made my day.

As the adults chatted over coffee and homemade cakes, all the kids would play together, running around the gardens and occasionally stopping for a sweet treat. Afterwards, my parents and I would usually continue at someone’s house, or go to St Kilda’s famed Europa cake shop for paczki (jam-filled yeast doughnuts).

All of these memories, as well as the elaborate Polish Christmases, and time spent with my wonderful (and very religious) grandmother, come flooding back to me when I look at those cards.

St Kilda’s Europa Cake Shop, pictured in 1993.Credit: Angela Wylie

But there are also, as for so many other lapsed and still-practicing Catholics, the less favourable stories of the church, its scandals and its views on certain members of society that I continue to chafe against.

“Religion today is so fraught for a lot of people, wrapped up in identity, anxieties about the way the world is changing, on assumptions around race and gender,” Newheiser says. “But Christianity is more complicated and interesting than its loudest defenders and detractors make it out to be”.

I’m uncomfortable with the thought of still harbouring divine belief – whether it’s in Jesus or anything else – yet it’s good to know that I’m not alone. And if keeping my Jesus and Mary cards in an envelope, buried inside a box, means I’ll sleep better at night, so be it.

Caroline Zielinski is a freelance writer based in Melbourne.