gwen I grew up in this kind of subculture Catholicism for so long that I didn't realize until college that most Catholicism WASN'T like that. My mother and her best friend talked a lot about the Rapture, which is an evangelical belief and not actually one embraced by mainstream Catholicism.
Pru's late mom was heavily catholic, but in more of an old-school traditional guilting sense. My mother is a lot nicer about it but also somehow worse, because she's genuinely concerned for the state of my soul. Catholic beliefs can really get twisted and warped when they take root in your motivations, especially the pre-Vatican II era. My mother isn't exactly happy that I'm a lesbian, but she is genuinely more concerned by the fact I masturbate than by the fact I love women. Possibly because the Bible is actually pretty quiet on the topic of lesbians, haha.
You know what’s funny? The combination of old-timey religion and well-meaning bigotry of my mother means she accepts Pru a lot more. Pru is transgender, and my mother kinda-sorta accepts it, but not really. As far as she’s concerned, even after her hormones and operation, Pru is a man pretending to be a woman. She just puts up with it because there’s nothing in her particular brand of faith that talks about it much. The bible doesn't even mention lesbians. But because of this, she doesn’t think of me as being gay, either. In my mother’s eyes, I’m living in a surprisingly wholesome marriage with a man who happens to dress up weird.
However, she also thinks women have it harder than men, and respects Pru for adopting both the identity of a woman and the burdens that go with womanhood. I think that's why she's so willing to mentor Pru as a surrogate daughter. She disagrees with Pru living as a woman but likes the idea that Pru is willing to wear a belt to avoid masturbating. She also puts up with Pru because in her eyes, Pru isn't really "her problem"; she's not her mother and thus not responsible for her, but appreciates and accepts that Pru is seeking instruction from her. It's all a weird tightrope I don't really understand and don't poke at too hard.
Yes, this means that to my mother, masturbation is a greater sin than marrying a man who wears pantyhose, haha.
