You were probably raised by a kind of Catholic I call "Catholic Light". They pray, go to church, think of god from time to time, and that's about it. Hardcore Catholicism is scary like any extremist religion, it will instill in children the fear of being watched and judged all the time, with no place to hide, not even your thoughts. It will make you fear eternal torture in hell because you're impure since birth, and every tiny sin makes you impure again. You become totally dependent on Catholic authority because only they can clean and save your soul, only for it to become dirty again almost immediately.
Subjecting a child to the fear of thought crime is the actual lunacy.
Most of my early hacking endeavors and criminal mentality were developed while circumventing net nanny software and learning how to sneak and lie effectively.
I wasn't allowed a computer in my room, there were long stretches of time where I didn't have a door, and when I finally got a phone it was subject to daily random confiscation so that my texts could be read. I struggled deeply with a sense of identity.
Sorry you had to deal with that stuff, too. I know that you don't gain that kind of perspective without seeing it for yourself.
> Who's to say my "Catholic light" behaviour isn't how the majority of what Catholics act?
It's not about how the sheep act, or if they believe their own dogma. It's how the leadership acts, now and historically. And public sentiment is also localized. Not every Christian is born in white America.
> Characterizing a group by a small minority is the work of demagogues and thugs.
The small minority (a questionable label without citation) does the majority of damage, while the rest of the congregation fund and venerate them, sticking their heads up their own asses so that they don't have to see what they're really contributing to.
Painting your detractors as thugs is just so lame, so lazy, I know you can do better than that.
I was raised by a Catholic deacon, in a family of prominence in my local diocese.
Before dismissing my experiences and perspective, you would do well to question your own experiences and perspective.
Perhaps you were raised thinking you were Catholic, but I was raised according to what the Church actually peddles. I was deeply involved. Mass every Sunday morning, beatings on Sunday night (most nights, actually), religious education every week, forced participation in youth group and anti-humanitarian protests.
My traumatic and abusive experience is indistinguishable from a cult, and your effort to discredit my experience of the Catholic faith, intentional or not, is extremely harmful to me and others who have suffered.
And when I refused to be confirmed into the faith at 15? I was dropped on the streets and made homeless for years, just barely etching out a high school diploma despite my circumstances. That's the Catholic institution. Anti-education and anti-humanitarian at its core.
So I consider myself a fairly religious person. I went through RCIA and is in good communion with the Church. After I received Catechesis and was Baptized, I began to dig deeper.. I started reading many of the Encyclical Letters (Humane Vitae, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, etc.), history of early Church fathers, as well the works of theological philosophy such as Summa Theloica and so on, I've concluded that far too many "Catholics" either have very little or no understanding of Catholicism at all.
When you mix this with right wing politics, nationalists, extremists,.. you end up with something that ventures so far from Catholicism that it becomes unrecognizable.
Just to make a single example nowhere in the Catechism does it say you should be shunned for refusing Confirmation.. in fact being "forced" to do any of it deems it invalid! Nor those it justify any kind of violence or hate towards transgenders and homosexuals.
It really is a shame that many Catholics (and broader Christians as well) seem to struggle with treating LGBT brothers and sisters with dignity. Treating another human being with dignity and respect does not mean you endorse any of their actions, it's just... how we are called to love.
There's nothing I want more for people than for them to realize that they have immense value as a child of God outside of anything else - their sexuality, their appearance, etc. because it's heartbreaking to me that many feel they do not.
Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to reconcile being respectful of others with my faith. I guarantee that I consistently fail at doing this in a proper way but I do try. We're all sinners in the end and we all have things that we need to work on.
I appreciate your heartfelt comment. The following is an honest criticism on your sentiment, which while well-meaning, is actually harmful to many children around the world right now who need a light shone on this issue.
> When you mix this with right wing politics, nationalists, extremists,.. you end up with something that ventures so far from Catholicism that it becomes unrecognizable.
The reality is that the past isn't so rosy, and that Catholicism and Christianity have always, in practice, served as political and financial instruments to those who wield them. The people at the very top know what they are enabling, just look at the response to pedophilia and abuse and how long it took for the Church to even appear to do something about it.
It's a transaction many gladly make, and one that was heavily advertised since the beginning: Sin on the weekdays, beg for forgiveness on the weekends. Receive a nicely packaged enemy to direct your class frustrations toward. All in exchange for a tithing and a warm body for any social causes.
> Just to make a single example nowhere in the Catechism does it say you should be shunned for refusing Confirmation.. in fact being "forced" to do any of it deems it invalid!
I wasn't forced to get confirmed. I had the option of becoming homeless and being cut off from my extended family, who were entirely Catholic and all attended different Churches (no isolated sects).
> It really is a shame that many Catholics (and broader Christians as well) seem to struggle with treating LGBT brothers and sisters with dignity.
...Have you read Genesis? The first book of the Bible? Where God destroys entire cities for having gay sex? That's basic Catholic literature, and if you are a true Catholic, it's something you believe in. If you don't believe in it, you're not a Catholic. It's not open for interpretation.
Also see Leviticus, etc. Or look at my patron saint, Joan of Arc, who got burned at the stake at age 17 for wearing pants.
> There's nothing I want more for people than for them to realize that they have immense value as a child of God outside of anything else - their sexuality, their appearance, etc. because it's heartbreaking to me that many feel they do not.
Thank you for believing in the innate humanity of every individual, and the right for their lifestyle choices to be respected and not infringed upon.
Unfortunately, that sentiment is anti-biblical, and you need to choose between maintaining that attitude and supporting an institution that has historically supported, and continues to support, unjust crusades and anti-humanitarian principles and political fascism.
Because you cannot do both, unless you don't fully understand the topics.
> Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to reconcile being respectful of others with my faith.
That's great. I was beaten almost nightly by a deacon who was revered in my community, shaken and spit at and told I had Satan inside of me, viciously whipped with the buckle ends of my tormentor's massive belt collection, until I couldn't cry anymore, because "men don't cry and I will whip you until you learn not to cry."
Every Sunday I would watch him dispense parables of love and acceptance, I would watch my community look up to him and ask him for advice. And then, on the way home, I'd be avoiding black eyes.
I remember one time on the way to Church, he and my brother began assaulting me. He stopped the car, pulled me out of the vehicle and threw me in a ditch, pinning me down. I was fifteen, finally getting old enough to fight back, and I managed to get him on the ground and kick him in the ribs until he stopped trying to attack me.
Then he got in the car, left me stranded on a highway and went to tell a sermon while I limped for miles back home. Then called the police on me and told them I was dangerous and armed, and when we got to the precinct he went on a violent rant about how I was an athiest, and I feared for my life as the police just watched, as they always did.
This wasn't a few times. This isn't just one bad apple. This is institutional, and I am a direct victim of this system from which you are fortunate enough to be on the beneficiary end of. I lived in fear of death my entire childhood.
The Church is not what you think it is. And remember that there are gigantic Catholic communities in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines, where systemic child abuse is still not only tolerated but in some cases encouraged.
I reaffirm my previous statement. You were raised by a lunatic who abused you over and over, and you assume it was the religion that was the cause of your trouble.
It's likely that even without this religion, your father would have become a fanatic of a different one - and become just as insufferable.
No one is dismissing your pain, we just realize you're painting with a wide brush. Catholics are many millions of people. I'm not surprised there are lunatics among us.
It wasn't my father. I didn't live with my parents. You're also glossing over the fact that this man was venerated and protected by the church. That they had a leadership position in the church and community. That it's part of a much larger systematic abuse within the church. That the church has a long and colorful history of this kind of behavior from leadership including many popes, countless bishops and even more priests. The crusades.
You're pretending that this isn't a gigantic structural, institutional issue because you don't want to accept you've been praying to a made up deity and supporting a terrible institution. You also glossed over my point that a large majority of Christians and Catholics are in countries with much different views on normalized child abuse.
You can blind yourself all you want to reality, you can convince yourself my situation is unique, but it's not. If you truly care about yourself and the church, I implore you to take a few more deep dives into the church's history, and not cherry-pick the good parts while ignoring the awful parts.
There's a lot of good things in the bible and in the clergy. There's also a ton of bad, which is quite often minimized by people such as yourself. What you're doing is harmful, plain and simple.
Subjecting a child to the fear of thought crime is the actual lunacy.