special edition for javier, c. 1999

In the inescapable boredom of the Underwest, it was not unusual for college friends and I to spend a little more time than one can be proud about attempting to antagonize one another. Case in point:

THE TWELVE STEPS OF Catholics Anonymous (CA)

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over Catholicism - that our lives had become un-enjoyable.
Step 2: We came to believe that a Power more reasonable than the Holy Catholic Church could restore us to sanity.
Step 3: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of anyone but our priests, as we neither understand them, nor they us.
Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being that our inventories were on a short list as we have few internalized morals.
Step 6: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, but decided being empty inside was too scary. Instead, we asked God to clarify contemporary definitions of sin.
Step 7: We humbly asked Him to remove these shortcomings, and replace them with more logical and fascinating ones.
Step 8: We made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all, even women and homosexuals.
Step 9: We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, even in public, except when to do so would injure them or others, carefully avoiding our former behaviors based on the notion that injuries brought by amends should always be indirect so no blame may be laid.
Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it, and did not flog ourselves (even mentally) or seek absolution.
Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him, praying only for knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

"The only requirement for membership in CA is the desire to stop being Catholic."