By: Nicolette Prociuk

I’m losing my faith. Or at least that’s what this feels like. And yet everyone’s telling me that it’s healthy to constantly question my beliefs but my beliefs aren’t what I’m questioning. It’s balancing who I am with what I’ve always believed. Sure I don’t receive Christ every week like I’m supposed to and I am constantly breaking the Ten Commandments. I have no idea when the last time I went to Confession. According to my mother I am impure to receive the Eucharist because I identify as Bisexual. I have broken the rule of abstinence. I haven’t read the Bible in years yet I have never felt closer to my faith because of DePaul. By living out being a Vincentian I have felt so close to the true meaning of being a Catholic. Sure going to mass and praying are key components to Catholicism but that’s not our purpose or meaning. Where is the action? We are told to be like Christ yet we reside in our safe churches every weekend and ignore that person experiencing homelessness as we walk out of mass that Sunday. Where is the justice in that? If we preach about how great Jesus was and aspire to take action like Him why don’t we practice what we preach?

Many Catholics cringe at the word social justice. It’s too liberal or too dramatic but yet is basically what Jesus did, he went to the poor. He didn’t “serve” them, he was one of them! But in the same way we must question authority and those that put the lowest of society into these conditions the same way Jesus Christ questioned the high priests. We must question the authority of these political figures who promise all this honesty and don’t deliver. While we put band aids on outside issues we must conquer and go straight to the source on the inside to end this struggle many human beings go through that so many others profit off of.