Fat and Catholic?

At least until they excommunicate me

As a fat person, it’s hard to say this sometimes, but it’s true: my appetite drew me to Jesus.

I was three years old and my church practiced communion every week, passing around trays of crackers and of juice for congregants to consume.

I reached out for it because I wanted a snack.

That started a journey with communion, known to liturgical Christians as the Eucharist, that would eventually lead me to join the Catholic Church in April 2015.

In a world that says my appetites are bad, needing radical control, my appetite drew me to God.

And it continues to draw me to God as I go through diet culture deprogramming, still leaning into the reality of the goodness of my body. I actually wrote a whole book about the goodness of all bodies through a Catholic lens—it’s called Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Gave Me (Our Sunday Visitor, 2018).

SPEAKING OF BEING CATHOLIC:

For a lot of reasons, including having a MAGA bishop, I stopped attending Mass during Covid. It was a crisis of faith for me, because the Catholic Church had been such an avenue of healing for my relationship with my body (as told in Lovely).

Because I was confirmed Catholic, according to Catholic teaching, I am still Catholic, even though I’m not practicing anymore. I find myself still very invested in Catholic things, even though I’ve walked away from that church. I cried for days when Pope Francis died. He had been such a voice of clarity and compassion on so many things, even though he had his limitations.

Yesterday, I was gathered with some colleagues as the white smoke billowed from the roof of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. We awaited the announcement of the identity of the new pope and were SHOCKED when it was announced that Robert Francis Prevost, from Chicago, USA, was named as the new pope, Leo XIV.

He was close to Francis, which means he will likely support the openness and welcoming Church of Francis’s vision. He chose the papal name of interest—Leo the 13th was pope at the turn of the 20th century and is referred to as “The Pope of the Worker” because of his pro-labor, pro-union drive. I have hope that Leo the 14th will continue with that vision, because God knows we need it.

It’s true that he’s against women’s ordination, even to the deaconate. It’s also true that he is against what he would call trans and LGBTQ “ideologies.” It’s also true that there are allegations that he helped cover up sexual abuse and it’s true that he allowed a disgraced priest to live in one of his church’s rectories next to a school. That’s disgusting and disturbing. He is not a “progressive” in the way we think of progressives today. But for the Catholic Church? He is progressive.

I’m struggling with my feelings about Pope Leo XIV and what his election means for me, a lapsed Catholic who might just feel called into ministry as a woman, with many LGBTQ people who are very dear to me, and with a heart of compassion for the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

It’s complicated.

And I believe that’s okay.

So here I am, a fat, disabled lapsed Catholic, sitting in the discomfort of the complicated. I invite you to sit here with me, if you find yourself with similar hopes and questions and condemnations.

God is bigger than the institutionalized church. And I still believe that God wants to draw us to God’s self, even through our appetites.

Much peace and love to you today,

Amanda Martinez Beck