I’m writing my essay about some issues I have with the faith I was brought up in, and I’m wondering if it’s going to be too controversial. A friend talked to me a few years ago about how hard it was for him to be gay in a Catholic school, and I really sympathized with him. I hated seeing how deeply the Church’s position on homosexual relationships hurt him. I firmly believe in marriage equality and never thought it conflicted with my religious beliefs until I talked to this person. Then I started questioning the position the Church took. The Bible has many more passages in it about love and acceptance than it does about the sinfulness of homosexual relationships. I then started questioning why women aren’t allowed to be priests. Apparently, it’s just because of the Church’s Sacred Tradition - the original members of the Church weren’t ordaining women, so the Church today won’t ordain women. I’m a feminist, and this just made my blood boil. I struggled with how to reconcile my support of women and the LGBT community with my religion for a while. I finally realized that I couldn’t support this religious institution anymore. It may be an absolutist point of view - I’m throwing out all of the good things with the bad - but I’m just not the type of person to accept imperfect social institutions as they are. My ethical struggle with this helped me develop critical thinking skills and realize that I shouldn’t accept things at face value or as absolute fact. I think that new outlook will benefit me in college.
To put things into perspective, I’m applying to Hampshire and Bennington, which are pretty alternative colleges. I also know for a fact that Bennington has a lot of students who identify as atheists.
Talk about the process of your ethical struggle, and try not to make your essay an argumentative paper about the problems with the Catholic Church.
Talk about how you had to question your beliefs after talking to your gay friend, and maybe talking about how women can’t be priests. Also, do NOT throw out the good things with the bad. The world is not binary, and people who tend to view it like that often do because they haven’t thought very critically about the whole situation. I understand why some of the beliefs of the Catholic Church would make your blood boil, but try to reconcile your frustrations with the positives of the religion. That would truly demonstrate critical thinking, which admissions loves.
Tread carefully. If I’m your reader, I’m going to have a had time recommending someone who puts down my faith. So make this essay about YOU, not about Cathocism.
Thanks for your advice! I do understand where you’re coming from, and I will tread carefully, but it’s also going to be clear in my essay that I no longer identify as Catholic (hope that’s not what you’re against me saying). That doesn’t have to mean that I’ve abandoned religion altogether (Even though I have for other reasons, which I won’t mention.). I’ll definitely work in the positives of religion (because I know there are a LOT). Thanks again!
It is actually rather common for students to want to talk about rejecting the faith they were raised in. I don’t find it a compelling topic. But you do have a little different take on it and write well, so you may be able to make it work. In this case I wouldn’t worry much about offending a Catholic admissions officer, I doubt they are that thin skinned.
Unless you were forced to be a Catholic and were not allowed to leave the faifth, then I would not talk about it. The best thing about America is that we are free to have our own beliefs, and by crusading against the beliefs of 2000 year old instiution on the basis of complaints which are not at all unique or special, it is not a good idea. They have their own ideas, and your ideas clash with theirs and you dont like that. That is the message I am getting. If I were to write about it though, i would keep it succinct with very little mention of the church and only focus on your independent spirit and strong moral compass. After that I would end the essay. It will either make you look like a SJW (Very good or very bad) or an independent person ( Good). Pick the better one. Make it different since I would expect it to be common.
My dad was a Catholic priest @FinelyAgedPruno, so it’s a bit different for me to reject the faith I was raised in than it is for anyone else. I might talk about it in a bit more depth since I have a lot of words to play around with. He just wants me to be spiritual in some capacity… I’m pulling in a different direction (more toward atheism). Would that make a more compelling essay? Cause right now I’m writing in a way that skirts around the issue of whether or not I’m religious anymore. Should I just answer the prompt about a time I rejected a belief or idea and talk about that point of contention with my parents?
Oh, and also, I was forced to be Catholic - I was put in a Catholic grade and middle school by my parents. I chose my own high school, though, and although it had a religious affiliation (not Catholic, though), it was much more accepting. I’m not a social justice warrior. I looked it up on Urban Dictionary - that whole concept is really stupid, and I highly doubt a very liberal admissions committee would think I was being disingenuous and trying to ‘score points’ with them for writing about this very personal topic. I’m bisexual, and I definitely do care about LGBT rights.
@BrownParent Yeah, I found that out after a few Google searches… a lot of kids seem to write about it. My dad was actually a Catholic priest for almost a decade, so it’s a bit of a different thing for me to be rejecting the Catholic faith. I’m writing in a way that’s skirting around the issue of what I believe… should I take the focus off of the gay friend I talked to and how that changed my point of view and just talk about rejecting my religion when my dad is an ex-priest? That’s something they don’t hear everyday I bet…
@simslover as I read your first post, I found that I was very interested in what you were saying. I think, if it is well written, it is a good topic. I would not use it for admission to a religious college, but you are not applying to one!
Personal? It wasn’t the OP who was struggling w censure for being gay.
To me it smacks of gratuitous scoring for diversity points, for mentioning your token gay friend, your token black friend, your token jewish friend, your token ____ friend…
No, that new outlook will NOT benefit u in college or in life (good luck finding that perfect spouse or perfect job. And just wait till u get your perfect kids). You are showing that you do not have either the patience, intellectual honesty, or intellectual capcity to see ethical/moral AMBIGUITY. You have naively reduced an issue to black & white. The world is not black & white. Even Darth Vader had some good in him in the end.
Absolutists views in the world is why we have groups like ISIS.
For a college admissions essay, I give it a total fail. It speaks to how you have closed your mind.
Could you explain this? Your dad already had issues with the Catholic church if he had to petition for annulment of his vows. And if that petition was not approved and he just walked out, he has been “living in sin” ever since.
@GMTplus7 It wasn’t my friend. I didn’t make it clear enough in my post. It was a family friend. My mom was friends with him. And I didn’t like him at all (he was actually quite mean to my sister). I don’t have a token gay friend… I was genuinely touched by his pain even though I didn’t like him as a person. I don’t know if that changes anything. And I’m bisexual, so the Church’s views on marriage do have personal importance.
And your assessment of me as closed-minded is unfair. You’ve just judged me because of this one post - don’t you realize I’m more complex than that, less black and white? One of the teachers I’m getting a recommendation from has complimented me on my insightfulness. The reason I’ve given up on Catholicism is because the Church’s attitudes about female ordination and homosexuality have excluded large groups of historically disenfranchised people. I don’t think Jesus would support their views. He associated with lepers and other social outcasts. He probably did hold the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman considering when he grew up. But I don’t think he would’ve approved of the sermon that the pastor of my Church gave about the immorality of homosexual relationships. He would’ve told that pastor to take the log out of his own eye before he comments on the speck in someone else’s. Mother Theresa said it best - if you judge someone, you have no time to love them. That’s the essence of Jesus’s teachings. The Church has gotten away from that central idea because it’s too caught up in its rules. The Church is supposedly the moral authority, and says that its teachings are divinely inspired… I’m not going to accept bigotry from an institution that makes those claims.
You’ve misunderstood me, because I won’t hold anyone or anything else to that high standard. When I was a child, I was taught about religion like it was fact - that Jesus turned water into wine, etc. I believed it. I’ll never look at anything else that unquestioningly again. If you told me “the sky is blue,” I’d want some proof. I think that is a perspective that will benefit me. It means I’m not gullible.
@TomSrOfBoston Yup, he is living in sin! He didn’t wait to be laicized because the Pope at the time wanted proof that he was unfit to make his vow on the day of his ordination. He didn’t agree with a lot of Church practices. I think the biggest thing was that he saw men who made mistakes (even sexual abusers) just being shuffled from parish to parish. And he recognizes that a lot of things I dislike about the Church are valid complaints. He just wishes I were spiritual.
I think I’m going in a completely different direction with the essay, though.
So… given how many misunderstandings and widely differing opinions just posting about this has raised, that ought to give you pause about using it as an essay topic. Admissions officers are as widely varied as our readers out here. And I think it is extremely difficult to make this essay about YOU vs. about pros and cons of the Catholic faith and your complex family history. Remember the goal of your essay – it is to get them to want to bring you to campus. (Yes, I know the questions ASK for certain things, but the admissions officers did NOT write those questions, the Common App people did). Figure out a story you want to tell that reveals something about you and makes them want you on campus, then see if you can fit it to a prompt.