Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris judicare sæculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira. Dies iræ, dies illa, calamitatis et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.


I had a (partly) catholic upbringing, and it quite often sneaks itself into my work. People are usually surprised because I'm a person of doubt if nothing else. Not to say that I am an atheist-- I'm agnostic. I don't think catholicism is the most healthy religion to be brought up around. It's a pretty graphic religion with lots of very strange imagery. The whole idea of communion- eating of the body, drinking blood - it's almost pagan. It's deeply engrained in mysticism, symbolism, and ritual and that's the bit that interests me. If you look at it, it's just as "primitive" and all that as the "heathen" religions they tried to convert others from. It's just a question of race, innit. I don't mean to play the race card but really now, if there was a shamanistic religion in africa that involved ritualistic (albeit symbollic) drinking of blood and eating of the flesh of a strange outcast who claimed to be the son of god, there would be all sorts of sensationalism.