The Night I Stopped Believing

My First Confession Was a Doozy

I remember, distinctly, the moment I had my doubts about God. It was 1967, and when I consider the year in retrospect, it must have been a very big season for atheist conversion.

"On April 29, 1966, our Dear Lord showed His Mercy when Susie made her First Confession to Father Benson at 8 years old."

I was in Catholic school, in Los Angeles. I was nine. I was just starting to read newspapers and magazines about current events.

My teacher, Sister Jude, shocked the hell out of her little charges one Monday, by showing up in class without her strict habit, and with her hair showing. Nuns were traditionally covered from forehead to foot with long robes and veils— it was incomprehensible to imagine they had figures or hairlines.

Sister informed us there was going to be an open-air Mass against the War the very next Sunday. She no longer wished to entertain the top religious issue of our fourth-grade class, which was whether you could go to hell for playing with Ouija boards. No, she wanted to talk about Vietnam. She was questioning the big picture, and I loved her so much, that I wanted to read whatever she was reading, hear whatever she was hearing. I wanted to touch her hair.