Didn’t get a whole lot of Catholic school because we lived in the country, but 16 years of regular Sunday attendance qualifies me, I think.
Guinastasia got it right. There is always something you should be doing to help others, or some way that you should be grateful for what you have because, invariably, someone else has suffered so much more than you. Not necessarily a bad philosophy, but it can get tiring when you’re internal dialogue is a constant self-critique.
I used to be paralized with fear/guilt as a young child if I ever did anything wrong or not quite well enough. Young child, bah. I still get this. Though it’s hard to say how much is from the Catholic upbringing or from the bipolar mother, Asian father, and only child status.
These are “natural reasons” conception is blocked, what about sexual activity between husband and wife other than intercourse. Example: can you passionately kiss your wife, (a kiss that is sexually pleasurable) but not have intercourse so there is no possibility of conception? Can you just “make out” with your spouse?
Certainly not together, being married to other people and all.
I don’t know too much about this area, but regardless of one’s capability of having intercourse, I don’t think the generally the Church would consider it OK for “making out” to be a permanent substitute for intercourse.
On the other hand, I would bet my life that a couple in this situation (permanent disability) could find a bishop who would grant them a dispensation.
How many bishops do you think they’d have to ask before they found one who told them it was okay?
How long would this shopping around be likely to take?
Don’t you think it would be incredibly demeaning to have to find someone who would be willing to sanction mutually agreeable intimate behavior between a husband and a wife?
This is a common misconception. You have not sinned in your heart until you have made a decision to sin. After that, it doesn’t matter if you were successful or not. God makes no allowances for the incompetent.
Catholic guilt is a product, I would say, of the Church’s examination of conscience, as OttodeFe pointed out. It also comes from the dumdfounding capacity the clergy have to turn any sin into your sin. Got caught making out in the cloakroom? Your partner will certainly be subject to a speech about what a whore she’s made of herself, but not in your presence. All you get is “It’s bad enough you’re going to hell without dragging some innocent girl down with you.”
Or you can feel guilty for feeling guilty, since, if done correctly, you’re getting a perverse masturbation-like pleasure from psychologicaly scourging yourself. Or, having successfully loaded yourself with guilt, you can feel guilty for feeling superior to those beguiled souls who don’t feel as guilty as your do, since God loves them more than he does you because, as sinners, they need His love more.
I eventually assumed Catholic Guilt was a cornerstone but hardly the only brick in the wall that every Irish-American is told constitutes the world, with no doors or windows as those priviliged Protestants were allowed, and for pounding open his forehead was the only acceptable tool.
I think it’s a result of the intense philosophical and intellectual nature of Catholicism-there’s ALWAYS nitpicking everything to death. Remember the questions you used to ask the priests and nuns, like, “If I get a piece of food caught in my teeth and later it comes out during Mass, have I broken the fast and therefore can I no longer take Communion?”
That’s because the actually-practicing Catholics have periodic access to the patented Sin Flush[sup]TM[/sup] Us dropouts, OTOH, can’t help but entertain the nagging suspicion “…hey, what if THEY are right after all?” :eek:
Part of it does have to do with having children as young as 7 going to Confession… seeing as it’s highly unlikely that a 7-year-old has engaged in any major moral decisionmaking, too often the Sisters and Brothers imparting the teaching would encourage the kids to confess stuff that really seems de minimis. Along the way, they plant the earlier-mentioned broad definition of what is a “Sin of Thought”.
Catholic Guilt is the feeling that masturbating in the shower is “wrong”. Likewise, banging your girldriend, eating shrooms and sleeping till noon are equally “evil”. It’s the overarching idea that the pleasurable things in your life are sinful, and you fesire to indulge in them is sinful, too.
I have no idea what the answer is to any of these questions, because every priest and every Catholic is different. I will say this…contrary to what most people seem to believe, much of what goes on between priests and laity is in the form of dialogue. It is not about the priest giving a list of rules about what “can” and “cannot” be done, but more of a counselling session, so that the priest and the layperson can both be sure that the layperson’s heart & mind are in the right place. Based on my experiences in these types of dialogues with the priests I have known, I don’t think they’d have to talk to very many, I don’t think it would take very long, and I think the people are more likely to come out of it feeling better about their relationship with each other and God than they started out.
I am only basing this on my experiences and opinions. I am in no position to defend it further, as I don’t know the POV of every bishop in the world.
Read what Qadgop the Mercotan quoted. Father Joe cites oral sex and “digital manipulation” as specific examples, but more broadly he talks of any physical intimacy that does not lead to intercourse as not being kosher.
I didn’t learn anything about that until I was well into high school and attending CCD.
In grade school, the big “sex talk” consisted entirely of "don’t"s, at least for the girls. Intercourse was never stated; however, the upshot was that your duty, as a burgeoning woman, was to uphold your purity in the name of the Virgin Mary. The minute you let a boy near you, it was a one-way ticket to Hell. Ditto if you did something that would make a boy look at you, like hiking your uniform above your knee. The “fast” girls always got suspended for that, and you were never, ever, to associate with THEM.
Us dropouts, OTOH, can’t help but entertain the nagging suspicion “…hey, what if THEY are right after all?” :eek: