church as empire - this is not the catholicism I signed up for

"I grew up in what some might consider a “syncretic” religious culture. My mother was Jewish, though no longer practicing. My father had been brought up Methodist, but converted to Catholicism, though he wasn’t practicing, either. We kept certain Jewish feast days, made a big deal out of Christmas, prayed the “Hail Mary,” and sang old-timey Gospel songs in the co-op my mother founded with her hippie artsy Mormon friends. Some Sundays I went to the Episcopal church with my grandmother, and liked the quiet dignity of its ritual and music. Other Sundays my family went to a non-denominational charismatic church in an abandoned warehouse, where we were one of only a few white families".