Okay.
When you are like twelve, the
Catholics feel that you've done enough
thinking and now you need DOGMA. So they do a
second baptism where you get to
admit it in your own voice; after that, they figure they've
gotcha.
Among the
various humiliations that entails
preparation for this interesting
ritual is the
adding of an extra middle name to your records. You
kind of get to choose the name; it has to be a
saint, of course, and is
subject to
nun recall. Since my
first name isn't a
saint's name (they actually pitched a
big fit over this, as the years wore on and my
mother refused to change it), they didn't let me pick
at all, and I got
Bernadette.
Bernadette. One of the nicer saints, all
told, but YIKES! It also made my
initials M.A.B.S., which got me
plenty of whuppins on the playground in years to come.
That is, until I
wised up, and finally understood that at least that particular
Catholic Institution, in
concert with the
Vatican, was as
far from God as you could possibly get, and flipped them all off and went to
court and got rid of my
confirmation name. So there.