Sunday in the park with Benedict

I'm attending the papal Mass this Sunday at Yankee Stadium.

This is an odd thing for me to do. For one thing, it means giving up a precious Sunday I could have spent laundering little-girl underpants and vacuuming dog hair.

For another, it's five hours. On a hard stadium seat in the open air, which perhaps organizers thought would feel like home to a congregation used to wooden pews in a drafty cathedrals. Five freaking hours. Have I mentioned it's five hours? I go a long way to avoid baptismal Masses and First Holy Communions and any other sacrament that might extend my obligatory 60 minutes in church. (Before you Christians bombard me with e-mails again, take a moment to remember I'm Catholic. We're not supposed to enjoy worship.)

But the strangest part about me venturing across the bridge to see the pope—oh, all right, it's all of five miles from my house, while others are traveling across the country—is that I am a deeply conflicted Catholic. It's no secret that I've spent the past few years struggling mightily with my faith. (It's no secret because I wrote about it in a back-page essay for TIME.)

Though my issues dig all the way to the roots of my religion, the most nagging ones lie with the church itself. Like many American Catholics, I am passionately opposed to many of the Vatican's views—on reproductive rights, on gay people, on the role of women in the church. I regard Benedict, as the leader of said organization and the face of those views, with respect but no particular warmth.

So I see this little pilgrimmage across the Hudson River as less a spiritual exercise than an anthropological one. What I won't do for a good blog post, right? Also, my husband is playing in the orchestra and had a guest pass. Also, Harry Connick Jr. is performing. Also, I'm hoping one five-hour service will make up for the many I've missed over the past year.

Check back here for my review—I mean, my assessment—post-service.