Bad Catholic Mothers

About the Book

Nothing stops a conversation like announcing that Jesus is a smokin’ hot dude in front of fellow Catholic school parents at a social gathering. A close second is telling your own mother (of nine) that you’re pretty sure Jesus and Mary Magdalene weren’t married, they were just friends with benefits.

These are just two of the hilarious confessions in this collection of true stories, Bad Catholic Mothers, compiled by Lucia Duff Paul and Katie McCollow.

We asked Catholic women of all ages to tell us their worst Catholic mothering moments, and they came flooding out of the confessionals to share their stories. Christmas, First Communion, First Reconciliation (not to mention all reconciliation), birthday parties, neighborhood gatherings, there's no place to hide from Bad Catholic Mother behavior.

About the Author

Lucia Duff Paul is an advertising copywriter with 20 years experience. It was the only job she could find where reading magazines and going out for snacks resulted in a steady paycheck. She has written copy and created names, tag lines and themelines for some of America's best-known consumer product companies including General Mills, Pillsbury, 3M, Dow Brands, Target and The Limited. She even kept a straight face while writing TV spots for adult incontinence products. She briefly considered becoming a nun, until she heard about the poverty and chastity. Lucia has also been a regular guest on the Twin Cities CBS affiliate radio station, WCCO Radio. She was also a finalist for the HumorPress Spring 2008 essay contest for her entry “Competitive Tranquility” about competitive yoga, and a 2008 honorable mention for her essay, “Carrying On About Carry-On.” Katie McCollow won first place in the Writer’s Digest writing competition for Best Feature Article in 2007 and her essay “It’s Better to Give…Crap” placed in the top 100 in 2006. She has been a columnist for the RedEye edition of the Chicago Tribune since 2004, focusing on pop culture and humor. As a girl she used to lie in the confessional because she couldn’t bear for the priest to know she stole the book “Muffel and Plums” from the library behind the church. Thirty years later, she still has the book and the priest is dead. Both Katie and Lucia live in the Twin Cities where their children attend, shocker, Catholic school. Fran Shea, our illustrator, is a graphic artist who owns and operates a design and letterpress studio in Minneapolis. She created a pulp novel pinup girl style for this project, and submitted one of the longer essays. Try and figure out which one. Fran lives with her family in MInneapolis where she is making a run for sainthood by home-schooling her three children.