I was raised Catholic. When I was nine years old, waiting in enormous St. Benedict’s slow line for Communion, I studied the violent imagery adorning every window, crevice and corner of the church. Romans were fond of crucifying people, and Jesus was no exception. The walls of the church depicted violence everywhere: the stations of the cross, nailed body parts, Pontius Pilate’s whips, stab wounds, bloody crowns of thorns. To top it off, a twenty foot tall crucifixion with the same lifelike details loomed over the alter. It hit me that these images weren’t meant to comfort. They were meant to m…