Alex and I had lunch together today after spending the morning working on forms. Watching him eat these days is a true WTF? kind of thing and I'm not sure how he fits all that food into his stomach at one time, but it's also a bit fascinating at the same time. And I'm not sure how we got from What kind of pizza do you want? to religion, but we got there in short order.

How mad would you get if I decided I wasn't Catholic?

I wouldn't. (He's at the same age I was when I started picking apart the faith in which I'd been raised. I never voiced those doubts to my parents because they weren't just Catholic, they were Catholic. Any doubts I had would have been, I was sure, their personal failures.)

What if I didn't want to go to church anymore?

I'm not sure. You would have to have incredibly compelling reasons beyond wanting to sleep in later on Sundays.

I don't think the pope is infallible.

Neither do I.

I think women should be allowed to be priests.

So do I.

And priests should be allowed to get married.

So do-- (he got me there; he knows I'm conflicted on that particular issue, and he knows why.) That one is open for debate.

I don't think birth control is a sin.

I had a vasectomy. What does that tell you?

Why are you still Catholic then, Dad?

Unlike myself at his age, Alex has a firm grasp on what he believes; he worries that it contradicts the things he's been taught as he's grown up and that his mother and I will be crushed if he takes a different path.Our goal was never to raise kids who towed the line because we told them to; we've always wanted them to come to faith on their own. I don't care if he chooses to believe in something else, as long as he believes.

I'm not sure if I can articulate to him why I'm still Catholic, and why it was important to me to raise my kids in the same church I was raised in. But I can tell him that even Mother Theresa had her doubts, and they're prefectly normal. I can tell him, too, that I don't think there's anything wrong with setting aside the things you simply cannot agree with and embracing the things with which you do agree.

Someday he may find something else that meshes a bit better with what he believes, and we won't give him a hard time over it. Or someday he may find himself in the same place I've found myself, unable to pray without genuflecting, turning to the familiar when the shit hits the fan because that's what's deeply ingrained, reciting the Rosary because the numbness won't let anything else come out.

Until then, however, he's dragging his ass out of bed every Sunday with the rest of us.