by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: January 17, 2009

Throughout most of my life, I was blissfully unaware of what it would be like to be a victim or subject of prejudice. After all, I am a member of the white race, and a Californian as opposed, say, to a Southerner. My accent is not quite Westchester County, but is pretty much what one hears on television and radio. I am not Jewish, and the Irish in me goes back so many generations that it would not have been a problem even in the days of "No Irish need apply."

However, relatively late in life I was to discover that being Catholic could earn me a lower status and a wrinkled upper lip from certain elements of society. I lacked the all-important P in WASP.

Obviously, attending Catholic schools for the first twelve years of my education sheltered me from the realization that certain groups held me and my co-religionists in disdain. And then I went off to college.

It was certainly no big thing, but my freshman year roommates jokingly referred to me as a "redneck." I had of course heard the term but had always associated it with ill-educated, bigoted, white trash or members of the Ku Klux Klan-usually from the deep South. When I asked my non-practicing Church-of-England, prep-school educated roommates how the term redneck applied to Catholics, they admitted to being unsure but thought it probably had something to do with chains around the neck, St. Christopher medals and the like.

Suffice it to say that I agreed not to hang on the wall a crucifix that my mother had put in my suitcase. One of my mates referred to the object as "that great, gilded Jesu" (pronounced YAYzoo). Five years after graduation I got married. The college roommate to whom I was closest sent me a wedding gift of a sterling silver shot glass with a removable lid that made it into a mini-cocktail shaker. It was inscribed with the name Ignatius (for Ignatius Loyola) and my marriage date. Among my roommates I was occasionally referred to by that nickname since, being the only churchgoer, I was "the representative member of the Society of Jesus" for our suite of rooms.

The most shocking and surprising experience of anti-Catholic sentiment involving me came when I decided to marry. I presumed that we would be married in a Catholic church. My fiancee made no strong objections and somewhat grudgingly attended the instruction sessions given by the Catholic chaplain of Stanford University. It was a true blessing to have these sessions conducted by a brilliant intellectual and a very liberal member of the priesthood.

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