Catholic Church As A Deviant

For the majority of my childhood, I never questioned the Catholic teachings, practices, or beliefs that I was taught to encompass into my everyday life. Being raised in an extremely catholic family and attending a catholic elementary school led to a unique form of socialization – the process whereby an individual develops an identity and culture through interacting and communicating with others (Sandstrom 2014). As a member of my city’s catholic community, there were numerous expectations to maintain, however, as I entered my early teenage years I began to question the Catholic system and the teachings that were instilled into these social institutions. By questioning the legitimacy of the information that priests, teachers, and my parents

Depending on the context, prior experiences of individuals, and the social groups they interact with, some may regard the same action as deviant whereas others will not. Likewise, only those who actively practiced Catholicism viewed my choice in no longer following this pathway as deviant; with the individuals in my life who practiced a different religion or who identified as atheists, I was not categorized as a deviant member of society. During my final year at St. Joseph’s Catholic elementary school, my choice to no longer practice Catholicism became information that not only my peers knew of, but my teachers as well. As a result, I experienced biased treatment within this school environment, but specifically from my religion teacher Mrs. Brown who established an unfavourable image of myself based solely on my lack of religious

This negative treatment that was enforced by my religion teacher, lead to the shaming of my identity through stigmatization. This process contains four components: “disapproval of act leads to humiliation of the individual […] no ceremonies are sought to decertify deviance […] both the act and the person are designated as deviant [and] deviant identity is allowed to become a master status” (Shaw, 2017). To begin, my opinions that were shared during discussions and through written assignments was ridiculed openly, thus causing a humiliating display of myself in front of my peers. Following these events, my teacher did not seek to privately speak about how my opinions were viewed as deviant and unfit to be shared within the classroom environment, which would decertify my deviant act. Rather separating my identity from a single seemingly deviant comment, this teacher began to view my identity entirely as deviant. Mrs. Brown initiated the labelling of this deviant identity which began be perceived within this education institution as my master status – a primary identity or label that an individual acquires that holds more value over other identities (Downes, Rock & McCormick, 2013). To be stigmatized and viewed as deviant by an individual was extremely shocking and frustrating because of my inferior position as a student. Since