The Catholicism Thread

plax that thing u wrote was really nice

also w/r/t this

Though I kind of doubt the legitimacy of this, to this day my mother insists that while I spent my first three months of life in an ICU incubator there were people in the Vatican praying for me by name. That our diocese had a guy who knew a guy and what have you. She still attributes my survival to this, and I was baptized at Nuestra Senora de los Dolores--Our Lady of Sorrows--in November of 1986.

my mom STILL, for real, calls her v devout catholic friend (who is a fukkin saint imo, srsly the kindest person there is) whenever she's worried about something my sister or i have to face/do. like oh your finals are coming up, well don't worry i called M____ and she's gonna bang out a few rosaries and even tho i don't really believe in that stuff anymore if anyone's got a mainline to the baby jesus it's M____ and may as well right it can't hurt

hile the church has been guilty of persecuting the poor, when afforded political power, as in Ireland, it can also be, and often is, a very effective advocate for the poor and powerless: when catholicism gets radical, its as serious and organised about it as old fashioned communism.

Yep. For all the truth about Pope Pius XII being Hitler's Pope, it's a fact that the Polish, French, and German Catholic Church protected thousands of Jews and other protected minorities at the height of Nazism.

yeah, that's kinda the root of my OK-ness with catholicism even as someone that has identified as 'atheist' since like 4th grade.

idk TBF its like a big part of what jesus said, protect the poor the weak the vulnerable in society. the fact remains that the catholic church has also helped create and maintain those positions as positions of vulnerability and idk how much of a pat in the back you get for sometimes helping the poor and weak while also shafting them quite a lot (via colonialism)

Catholicism brings out an intense mixture of contempt and defensiveness in me. As a kid I really never saw much beauty, fellowship, or hope in Catholicism. The impression I got was of decay: old churches, old statues, old priests, old ladies with strong perfume that made my eyes and nose itch. My parents were ardent churchgoers but they (like a lot of Catholics) never really knew their faith very well, other than the rituals and prayers they had been observing since they were children.

None of it felt particularly real or comforting to me. After moving to South Carolina, the bafflement and confusion in my mind toward Catholicism transformed into embarrassment and anger. At school my Baptist classmates questioned me (as the lone Catholic in class) many times about my religion and would then tell me to my face I was a heathen who "worshipped Mary".

It also didn't help when our parish priest was accused of molesting someone and was quickly shuffled to another parish.

I realize a lot of this reflects my own myopia and selfishness.

this thomas nast cartoon always kinda freaked me out

http://www.phlmetropolis.com/Nast%20Anti-Catholic%20Papist%20Drawing.jpg

woah

Nast was born in the town my dad's from in Germany.

that cartoon is fucked up!

tbh i still get a faint whiff of "nastian" anti-catholicism from a lot of otherwise progressive types, like they still think it's ok to unleash a little hate on white ethnic/catholic types in defense of all things lefty

this is a fascinating thread! i wish i had been a religious studies major. the catholic church is so beautiful and so terrible. i think most of us are still reacting to it, and to the church's power at its zenith.

At school my Baptist classmates questioned me (as the lone Catholic in class) many times about my religion and would then tell me to my face I was a heathen who "worshipped Mary".

"Saint Nick? So you pray to Santa Claus too?"

It also didn't help when our parish priest was accused of molesting someone and was quickly shuffled to another parish.

This could be one of the few threads where I can swap altar boy stories without being asked a thousand times if I was ever raped.

My favorite duty was to ring the bells during the Consecration. Sometimes I'd wait a beat and give it just one more shake for emphasis.

And I don't want to come across as an old man, but when I went last time and saw girls working the altar, man. Is nothing sacred? And why couldn't they have done that when I was a kid?

This could be one of the few threads where I can swap altar boy stories without being asked a thousand times if I was ever raped.

i was also an altar boy (i was until i graduated high school) and i was never molested or even looked at funny by any of the priests i served. i also don't tell anyone that i was an altar boy b/c i don't want to get questions about whether i was molested.

catholic gators vs. jewish octopi:

http://m.clipmarks.com/image_cache/ammcc/512/75B66BB1-17AB-4EB2-B20D-CA4C38BA6853.jpg

well they came for the squids first

tbh i still get a faint whiff of "nastian" anti-catholicism from a lot of otherwise progressive types, like they still think it's ok to unleash a little hate on white ethnic/catholic types in defense of all things lefty

― buzza, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 11:09 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is super otm and something i've run into several times in my life

for sure. at least in my circles there's a certain "well the church is why AIDS is so rampant in africa" attitude going on.

they're basically right, though, is the thing

eh ime it's taken its form more in terribly insensitive priest/abuse jokes from non-catholics

you live in boston

and?

in my circles almost everyone hates religious people and thinks they're stupid and evil.

the epicenter of catholic church molestation activity iirc?

yeah i mean this is something that gets me defensive--as someone who's interacted with my fair share of priests i don't need to hear hurtful blanket statements from outsiders who have no knowledge of how wise, caring, and kind priests can be.

i mean not only is it offensive to victims, but it also rejects a vocation that is extremely strange yet still calls some remarkable people.

though in fact, the church is unofficially quite tolerant of gays in its own ranks, and never as vocal in persecution as fundies

One Sunday, when I was 14, the auxiliary bishop of our diocese made a guest appearance at our church and caustically denounced homosexuality in his homily. I was just beginning to identify as bisexual and was visibly shaken by these remarks; though I must've known the church's official position, I'd never heard a priest or anyone else be so explicit about it.

Though I'd already expressed to my parents my doubts about Catholicism, I think the clearly emotional complaints I made on the way home from Mass that day -- and my liberal parents' inability to defend the homily -- probably hastened their decision to have us stop going to church.

(On a related note, the former bishop of the diocese was my great-uncle, and my mom has made occasional insinuations to the effect that his profession may have been well-chosen, sublimation-wise.)

I remember leading the procession into mass a few of times as an alter boy, swinging the incense. I liked to set a real slow, solemn pace. The priest would urge me to hurry it up but i pretended not to notice.

<3

they're basically right, though, is the thing

yeah, criticism of the rc hierarchy is obv legit on many issues, it's more seeing the catholic churchgoers in some lumpen "they are just drones who obey the pope/bishop/parish priest on all issues including the ballot box" that irks, like if you actually knew a lot of catholics you'd know how conflicted/contradictory "the laity' is on pet left-wing issues

my layman's impression of actual catholics is that the hierarchy and the tradition and the myth and the obscurantism and the intricate endlessly revised self-contradictory rules give them this sense of irony that is often really attractive and mature without abandoning reverence. like whenever i have dinner with my girlfriend's large and reasonably devout catholic family they make a lot of rueful impenetrable jokes about their failure to obey this or that proscription, but in a way that reveals the proscription still matters to them, and it is really warm and human because it seems analogous to the whole christian god-became-a-mortal-for-a-while paradox. whereas if you hang out with devout protestants they seem to think they've worked everything out.

the only times i enjoyed mass was the days when the altar boys would have an attack of uncontrollable lolling and the priest would get really mad with them which would make them worse.

like you know that scene in annie hall where woody allen's jewish family and diane keaton's WASP one are split-screened and begin to talk to each other across the split-screen:

"what will you be doing over the holidays, mr. singer?"
"we fast."
"fast?"
"yeah, no food. to atone for our sins."
"what sins? i don't understand."
"tell you the truth, neither do we."

obv. this is a jewish joke but i'm always reminded of it anyway at dinner with the catholics.

jesus

yeah i mean this is something that gets me defensive--as someone who's interacted with my fair share of priests i don't need to hear hurtful blanket statements from outsiders who have no knowledge of how wise, caring, and kind priests can be.

i mean not only is it offensive to victims, but it also rejects a vocation that is extremely strange yet still calls some remarkable people.

well sure! I wasn't trying to be one of those ppl---just that I imagine that snarky "priests be rapin" comments might be more common in yr area, like

that "jesus" was a Zing artifact btw

The eucharist is a way of understanding the possibility of meaning, the synthesis of object and meaning

yeah this is a thing i always envied catholics growing up.

i envied the trinity; i think the trinity is more than pretty and might actually be accurate. i think "these things are all different, but they are also all the same, and together they form a larger thing, which is also the same" is like a super super useful concept to have hammered into your head.

(http://www.feandft.com/Mandelbrot-set-web.gif)

* The Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
* Though really distinct, as a Person, from the Father and the Son, He is consubstantial with Them; being God like Them, He possesses with Them one and the same Divine Essence or Nature.
* He proceeds, not by way of generation, but by way of spiration, from the Father and the Son together, as from a single principle.

Such is the belief the Catholic faith demands.

well sure! I wasn't trying to be one of those ppl---just that I imagine that snarky "priests be rapin" comments might be more common in yr area, like

― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Thursday, March 17, 2011 12:20 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol ok! i wasn't suggesting that my exp. was unique or weird or unlikely--just agreeing that otherwise progressive folks fall into this trap with ease.

very accurate depiction of catholic mass ime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-S3K6wXYpg

when I worked at a house run by the Church that gave shelter, food, medication and skilled nursing care to patients in the terminal stages of AIDS-related complications, then-archbishop Mahoney visited, and was as compassionate a bedside visitor as I've seen in any hospital; it's wrong of the Church to oppose condom use, of course, but you couldn't prove any lack-of-compassion charges on my experiences there. Nobody at our house ever got told to reorient, blamed for anything, etc. We didn't call it a "hospice" but anyway it was a special place the Church ran that complicated my reflexive "shame on you" stance toward the Church's response to the AIDS crisis

Sort of xp to jaymc way up there:

If anyone has time to read it this is very interesting about the Church's current position on homosexuality. Pope Benny's pink Prada shoes an' all!

A coworker of mine just left our organization to go work for an organization called Cath0lics for Ch01ce. Good for her, I thought, but why even? Why not just become a Presbyterian or whatever?

it's funny, the other day i found an old diary of mine and i apparently thought of myself as catholic when i was 18? which i'd completely forgotten. I mean, when I got into the church it was an anglo-catholic/high church anglican one, and the fact of its being anglo-catholic mattered quite a lot (not least because that meant that in a way it was a link to my mother's catholic tradition from which she'd been long lapsed but this shit stays with you), but-- at 18, still? how strange.

a friend of mine once said "you know, i'm a christian, i believe in god and that i will go to heaven" and my immediate reaction was "listen sunshine you don't get to know if you're going to heaven ok" so basically i guess i am a catholic in that, except i disagree with ~the church~ on thousands of things starting with the existence of god.

Good for her, I thought, but why even? Why not just become a Presbyterian or whatever?

i was just having this conversation the other day, about gay priests in the anglican communion - one never-in-any-way-religious friend said 'i don't see why they don't just leave for a church that will treat them better' and the immediate reaction from myself and my still-practicing other friend was 'no but they can't'. a religion, to me, is an entire culture - it's not that one shouldn't switch, it's just that it takes an uprooting of your whole self to do so.

a friend of mine once said "you know, i'm a christian, i believe in god and that i will go to heaven" and my immediate reaction was "listen sunshine you don't get to know if you're going to heaven ok"

Wahhhat, for reals?? Now I'm really pole-axed -- if it doesn't do anything for your eternal fate, why does anyone even BOTHER? The illusion of control if you SUFFER ENOUGH and debase yourself for fake standards?

thats calvinism not catholicism

was gonna say.

and the answer is: same reason we act as if we have free will in a deterministic universe - no choice

I think "good works" only take time off your stint in Purgatory.

yeah i mean there's purgatory etc. (in school they told us about babies limbo too wtf?) but your good works count and jesus loves you and repent and you will be saved

Sorry, C# -- that just came out of left field in terms of my surprise and reflexive annoyance! Up til then I was rly enjoying diff lstn hr's post and mulling it over and thinking about unruly altar boys and where the laity is going with the American Catholic Church vs where the Church is going with itself, which is actually quite interesting to me.

xxxp oh, okay!

i think the Pope abolished Limbo a few years back?