The Anti-RCC Catholic...

[Cleobulus]

I was raised in the church, but left it years ago, but this post isn't really about me, I'm not even a Catholic anymore, but rather an atheist.

No, this post is about the person who raised me, my mom(well, ok dad helped raise me a little too. :))

All my life, my mother never set foot in a Catholic church unless it was a wedding or a funeral, never regular services.

She throws the tithe envelopes that her house still receives in the trash.

This is the woman who was told by the Church, 30 plus years ago, that she risked her soul if she wanted to live a happy, healthy life with my father. Because of the difficult pregnancy she had with me, she had to wait a minimum of 6 years before having another child, she defied the Church and used birth control.

This is the woman who was told by the Church that some of her friends are sinners because of who they are and who they love.

This is the woman who went to a Gilded Church that preached about the plight of the poor while asking for money for themselves.

This is the woman who told me one of her greatest regrets was having me raised in the Church for her mother's sake, something even my younger sister(6 years younger than me) did not have to do.

This is the woman who, for much of my life, referred to the Pope of the time as an asshole, and the current one as a fucking asshole. :)

And yet, even after all this, she still considers herself Catholic, for she told me once that the Church doesn't belong in a building lined with gold, or in the arrogance of the Vatican. It belongs within each individual Catholic, in the heart, that the teachings of Jesus shouldn't be used to prop up the corrupt, but used by the faithful, on their own, to help and love others. This is what being Catholic means to her.

[Warpy]

1. I had one just like her, a staunch Irish Catholic

who professed to be an agnostic who firmly believed in reincarnation. My dad bought the whole party line.

My mother, to her credit, turned down last rites saying she didn't want to die that big a hypocrite. My dad, three years later, told me on his deathbed that he didn't believe any of that Sunday school crap any more. I had nothing to do with it, my irreligious nature being one sore point between us for years that we never discussed.

They both, however, identified as Catholics to the very end. It was like identifying as Europeans, as having blue eyes, as being Americans, one of the conditions of life they were born with.

Although I kicked the church to the curb when I was 10, I am still interested in what's going on with it and I still love Catholics for their sense of fun, their sense of fairness, and their good sense to thumb their noses at rules that simply make no sense, like the reproductive rules laid down by celibate old men in dresses.

Most are like your mother, with a good sense of where the church really is and that's not the Vatican. I just hope this set of scandals borne by an intensely unpopular pope will be the hierarchy's undoing.

The church should survive. Rome should not.

[Cleobulus]

2. My mom is Irish Catholic too...

I'm a big supporter of Catholic Churches that break with Rome on key issues and become Independent, I believe they represent the future for Catholicism, and frankly, the Church needs another Schism, hopefully one severe enough to render Rome powerless.

[Cleobulus]

3. One thing I find interesting, and I don't know if this is becoming typical...

But in my extended family, my Aunts and Uncles are all Catholic, but out of my all my cousins and myself and my sister, none identify as Catholic anymore, a couple turned Protestant out of marriage, the rest turned into unbelievers of one stripe or another.

[Warpy]

7. Some of my cousins identify as Catholics still

but I don't think any of them goes to church except the lone Republican nutcase and another one who married a Protestant fundy and goes to her church while not believing a word of it.

[Cleobulus]

8. I think in my family, it was a little unusual because of my grandpa...

This is my Mother's side, mind, and the Aunt and Uncle I'm talking about are from that side as well, his and my grandma's kids.

My grandpa was Presbyterian, and my grandma only married him if the kids would be raised Catholic, the thing is that he wasn't a "good" Presbyterian, frankly he was a party animal when he was younger, and quite, how shall I say, sacrilegious as well.

He used to annoy my grandmother by botching Grace on purpose, something like "Rub a dub dub, thanks for the Grub, yeah God." :)

Anyways, he taught us grandkids the basics of life, card games, drinking, partying, and for us guys, how to chase girls. :) He was cool, even if he get on my grandmother's nerves a lot.

Also, as far as I know, he didn't set foot in a Presbyterian Church since his parents died, well before I was born.

[JerseygirlCT]

10. Most of my siblings

are still nominally Catholic. Observe maybe the major holidays, have their kids baptised, and perhaps first communion. But they do not seem very comfortable anymore in the religion.

We were raised in the church, for sure - including Catholic school 1-12. But our parish was fairly progressive.

For me, I found it hard to stay once I left the comfortable confines of my home parish. I joined the Episcopal church, and am an active member, and raising my own kids there.

I think for many younger people (I can't really claim to be young, but in comparison to my parents' generation)the RCC has just become less and less relevant. They'd probably like to be comfortable with the idea of being active and raising kids as they were raised, but they just can't do it - especially as the RCC has become increasingly authoritarian and conservative in the US.

So in a way the one who left the church is the one who is still within it...

[notesdev]

4. There's a word for that

"Protestant"

Calvin, ahead of his time!

[JerseygirlCT]

11. Well, I'm not something of a Protestant, being Epsicopalian

But (shiver) NOT a Calvinist, by any stretch of the imagination!

[Critters2]

15. The United Church of Christ, probably the most progressive Trinitarian church,

is a Reformed church, with its roots in Calvin's reforms. There's more to Calvin than double predestination.

[JerseygirlCT]

16. Well to be fair

I think there's a bit of a difference between what Calvin himself came up with, and what twists and turns his thought took when in the hands of men with less integrity.

But, still, having been raised RC, and now Episcopalian, I tend to fall a bit more toward the Catholic side of the via media. And then sort of toss it all up when you add my universalist and unitarian impulses.

[YOY]

5. It's one thing the Catholic haters don't quite get...we're not Mormons.

We don't lockstep with the Church. We leave the church and still feel a tie to it. Even many with grievances who stay don't lockstep.

Just because the pope says it doesn't mean most Catholics believe it. For some it's a cultural identity thing. I call myself an Agnostic...and at times it's easy to see that I very much kept some of the values (the ones I WANTED to keep) with me. Even then we're not exiled from the community as a whole...at least I wasn't.

It's one that I like to believe that I've severed but I just can't quite hate it collectively. Individuals (especially those in the highest seats and the lock-steppers) yes...but as a whole no.

[Cleobulus]

6. I think there is kneejerk reactions on both sides of the debate...

Too many self identifying Catholic DUers defend the Church when it is criticized, when honestly, I've heard harsher invectives directed at the Church from my own mother, a LOT harsher.

At the same time, there are too many DUers who do generalize about Catholics in general, and they should be criticized for that.

I do find it inexcusable to tithe to the Church, knowing where the money goes, there's a reason why my own parents don't tithe.

[JerseygirlCT]

12. Yup, the cultural roots are deep

and that seems hard for some to understand.

[Angry Dragon]

9. Smart woman

[Toasterlad]

13. So She Perpetuates the Brand Name

For a person who seems to despise the church, she's sure doing her part to keep it alive.

[Cleobulus]

18. How so? First off, its not like she has a tattoo on her forehead telling people she's Catholic...

second, if people do ask, she'll answer that she's Catholic, then give her opinions on the Church itself, which, as you can imagine, is something she feels strongly about.

So I don't see how she's doing her part to keep the Church alive, let's see, she doesn't attend, doesn't donate money, and bashes the Church at every opportunity, yeah, she's doing HER part to keep it alive. :eyes:

[Toasterlad]

19. She Identifies Herself As a Catholic, Which Lets Other People Know That There Are Still Catholics

She's helping keep the catholic church alive. It's pretty simple.

[Cleobulus]

20. Not all Catholics are members of the Roman Catholic Church...

You seem to be confused here, for example, there's a Church in my area that, just recently, broke with the Archdiocese and with the Vatican. They did a few things the RCC thought were unforgivable sins, the first is refusing to turn over control of the Church's assets to the Archdiocese, second, when the Archdiocese pulled the clergy from the parish, the parish appointed two women to fill the space for a little over a year, that was a big no no. Then the parish invited an open and affirming priest from a different archdiocese that was in formal schism with the RCC. Most of the board of directors of the parish were excommunicated by the Archdiocese, along with the priest and others. The church in question now operates independently from the Vatican and the Archdiocese, and yet still calls itself a Catholic Parish.

[BurtWorm]

14. She's a Catholic the way a lot of Jewish atheists are Judaic, it seems.

It's a heritage thing. Non-Catholics and non-Jews wouldn't understand (of which I'm one, by the way, but I'm trying to understand). Especially for people who are Irish and Italian, and Polish and Hispanic or latino, Catholicism is not just a belief system, it's a cultural heritage, an integral part of learning to be Irish or Italian, etc. In fact, it often seems that belief has less and less to do with being Catholic than belonging to an ancient historical lineage and cultural tradition.

The hierarchy really doesn't seem to understand and appreciate what a sidebar the church is to more and more self-identified Catholics, rather than the main feature of life that it once was, and that misunderstanding seems to be endangering its position in Ireland and the US certainly. I was reading today that the newly appointed archbishop of Dublin criticized the Archbishop of Canterbury for saying that the church had injured itself so badly that priests were beginning to feel conspicuously unsafe in their collars on the street. Maybe the Anglican archbishop went overboard, but the Irish archbishop said his remarks weren't helping people keep faith with the church. Well, what reason do the Irish Catholics who feel betrayed by the hierarchy have to ever trust their hiearchy again? Why should they take anything the bishops say on faith alone?

[JerseygirlCT]

17. They shouldn't. Nor should he be worried about people

keeping faith with a church, but rather with God and with others. To me, that remark illuminates a bit of the problem with the RCC hierarchy - they cannot see beyond their own inflated importance, and that of their organization.

[Odin2005]

21. I believe there is a name for those, they are called Episcopalians

;-)