I hadn’t thought about it, but I said the Confiteor to myself after you mention it, and it does sort of sum the concept up nicely (at least to me, who’s lived her whole life with Catholic guilt).
I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned through my own fault. In my thought and in my word, in what I have done and what I have failed to do.
Yep, that about says it all to me.
To be fair, the examination of conscience is performed before going to Confession, so, assuming you don’t collapse under the weight of your guilt before that, these sins will be forgiven shortly. 
Speaking of which, when I was a kid I was painfully shy and scared of Confession, and this one time I could not think of what to confess so I made something up. :eek: Talk about something spiralling out of control–“Well, is it still possible to return the pencil you stole?”
Echoing a lot of the above: I guess Catholic guilt comes from the idea that, if you look at it this way, there are a lot of very strict rules to follow, including sins of thought and omission. Then there’s the whole “to whom much has been given, much is expected” and the idea that you can’t just safeguard what you’ve been given but have to “earn” off of them a la the parable of the talents. Faith matures, though, and this all becomes much less scary and more beautiful.
Hee, I’ve made up stuff for confession, too, gigi! And even going to confession, I felt enourmously guilty because I had stuff to confess, so obviously I was horrible, and if I didn’t have anything to confess (or was too scared), then obviously that was horrible too! And I hate how in my church, confessions are face to face :eek:. Give me anonymity any day!
Wow, so my food tag thing is Catholic guilt. And feeling guilty about buying a fountain pen for $40 (the first “me” purchase in about 5 months) probably is too. And, hey, so is… and … and that other…
Catholic guilt is feeling guilty for taking a vacation day, or posting to the SDMB, or apologizing just for existing.
If you are enjoying yourself, you must be doing something wrong.
That is catholic guilt.
Now you’re getting the hang of it!
I’ve always thought of Catholic guilt as being related to superstition.
I believe the Romans defined superstition as having too much fear of the gods. The Christians and others made superstition into this idea where God is an underhanded, sneaky bastard who put all these little booby traps into the world for people to be hurt by. And he didn’t tell you about it either. It was only by encountering the supposed bad results of black cats, broken mirrors, and the number thirteen, et al, that these traps were discovered.
And while it may be amusing to consider that some folks will go to tremendous contortions to keep from stepping on sidewalk cracks, it’s also troubling that they had the right idea, only picked the wrong causes.
A good steak is great, but eventually it’ll kill your blood flow to the heart. A drink is nice, but then there is alcoholism or cirrhosis. Sex—well—there’s the clap, syphillis, AIDS, crabs, herpes—and that’s the short list.
So the problem with superstitious people wasn’t that they were superstitious, but that they weren’t superstitious enough.
With Catholics, there is the related idea that God puts all these “occasions for sin” in one’s path, as tests. It’s not always obvious that what one is doing is wrong.
One of my earliest memories: I was about 4 years old and my grandmother (born in 1898) was giving me a bath in the kitchen sink. After scrubbing my upper body with a wash cloth, she handed it to me and said, “Now wash between your legs, and hurry up about it, cuz it’s a sin to touch down there.”
Sheesh. What a thing to say to a kid. And that’s how it starts.
And then there’s hundreds of others. My favorite is the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer. Doesn’t that teach little kids that it’s possible for them to go to hell? For what? Don’t know—that’s why you always have to be careful.
Limbo is no longer?
Damn. I wasted a whole lot of time worrying about those unbaptized babies and shacked up couples suddenly dying and languishing in limbo.
There are only two things that I think Catholics can do without guilt: Drink and Bingo.
And, after meeting with jewish friends and discussing Papist/Jewish guilt thing, all I have to say is that the only difference between Catholics and Jews really are that the jews have more money and less kids 
YMMV.
My grandmother (born in 1904) was taught to not look at herself in the bath when she was a kid. She was a devout Catholic and she even thought that was silly.
I wonder though how much of that was tied in to weird Victorian era attitudes about sex. Of course, my grandmother was the child of Croatian immigrants, so I can’t say how much they were affected by Victorian ideas.
As for limbo, one priest summed it up this way, “The teachings about limbo are sort of in limbo now.”
There are still debates about it among Catholics. I would be inclined to believe that limbo is not emphasized as much since Catholic children are not normally baptized at a very young age (like 1-2 weeks old), but more about 4-5 months old after the parents have taken classes about how to raise good Catholic children. And it’s hard to get out of those classes.
My brother and sister-in-law, who are on their parish council, and already had two kids had to go to the classes for a third time when they adopted a third child.
They passed the class each time.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not mention limbo but does say this:
"1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,”[63] allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism. "
The problem for the Catholic Church on this issue arises from Gospel of St. John, Chapter 3, verse 5:
and St. Mark, Chapter 16, verses 15-16:
Both of which indicate that nobody gets into heaven if they aren’t baptised. This conflicts with our human hope that God would not exclude babies from heaven merely because, through no fault of their own, they had not yet been baptised.
You left out 50/50’s
About Catholic guilt- I always attribute my inability to do things that other people feel no guilt about to “Catholic guilt”. Other people (probably most) sometimes call in sick when they’re not sick. I can’t do it. I know I’ll feel terrible the whole day
Doreen has nailed it.
Heck, I can’t take a vacation day w/out feeling guilt.
Excellent explanation. I have never been able to call in sick without actually being sick. Heck, I have a hard time calling in sick when I am sick (I’ll do it, but feel rotten the entire day about it).
Right. Comes from a teaching that “these X,Y,Z things/actions/thoughts are bad *in and of themselves even if nobody gets hurt *”.
Now, it’s true, all of Christianity is supposed to believe that about any number of “sins” – you should not lie, period, even about taking a sick day for other reasons, for instance – but in the American cultural environment of the last century, there was a visible contrast between how that was handled among the Catholic and the secularized-Protestant group that dominated society.
Protestantism believes in Salvation by Faith, which to many in American society became simplified into: you Repent and Accept Jesus and that’s it, no need to dwell on what you did before, just stop active sinning, live a law-abiding life, show up for services and tithe, and you’ll be fine. An ocassional little-white-lie for a “good reason” or moment of self-indulgende could be covered under the divine mercy if it did not affect the Big Picture.
Simultaneous to this, a large segment of the population became completely secularized or adopted new forms of spirituality where utilitarian/humanistic ethics were the norm. In this POV, if the action did not really hurt anyone, it was not really bad; and the thought alone was hardly ever ranked as “wrong”.
Meanwhile Catholics had a very noticeable set of other Church-specific precepts to hold to [e.g. no meat on Fridays, civil weddings not good enough] and Sacraments to participate in periodically, lest you become the metaphysical equivalent of an uninsured driver. The little-white-lie or the moment of self-indulgence were things you had to remember to confess next Saturday, and you’d be doing penance for them in order to reflect upon your weakness and see how you can keep from getting into that situation again.
Thus to the “mainstream” , persistent or recurrent consciousness of what have they done/said/thought wrong or just failed to do/say/think exactly right was neurotic, while to the Catholic it was essential to spiritual maintenance.
Problem is, many of our parents/teachers did not bother to explain beyond “that’s bad to even think about! You’re contributing to Jesus’ pain! Think of St. Precarious of Myrna, who had weasels rip his flesh rather than stay home from Mass!” and that made a lot of us neurotic.
Frank Zappa was Catholic?
What some of you are describing sounds like scrupulosity, which is a state in which you think every little thing you do is sinful and you become paralyzed with anxiety. I’ve read some of those little pamphlets left at the front of my church (how’s that for a cite?) about scrupulosity, and the authors associate it with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s not a healthy state to be in, and it’s not supposed to be the “default” state of the Catholic experience.
I become scrupulous at times, and the priests I’ve spoken with in confession confirm that feeling excessive guilt over relatively minor things is not from God.
I know some of you are joking, but seriously, if you feel guilt over allowing yourself a minor indulgence, maybe you should talk to your priest. (Not because it’s sinful, but because of the comfort you could get from him.) It’s okay to buy a fountainpen!
Yep. OCD and scrupulosity go hand in hand for me too. I have a handle on both but have read anecdotes of people who go to Mass and Confession multiple times a day because they did something incorrectly the previous time, etc. Mine is restricted to crossing myself or genuflecting* just so, in line with other tactile kinds of obsessions I have. But you and your priest are right, that anything that keeps you from being free is not from God. Very comforting.
Regarding the kids washing themselves “down there”, reminds me of Maya Angelou mentioning her grandmother’s instructions to “wash as low as possible, then as high as possible and then wash possible.”
Actually, yes! (at least originally)
But yes: “Catholic” and “Jewish” guilts, in American popular culture, have become catchphrases for variations of O/C behavior rather than truly religious associations
Hmm, this is all very interesting! So “Catholic guilt” can be, sometimes, related to OCD? Forgive my ignorance, but I wasn’t aware of consuming guilt as part of OCD. I want to check this out further, it’s fascinating.
It’s not exactly that “Catholic guilt” or even consuming guilt is part of OCD, but that the OCD can manifest in a religious way. While one person’s compulsion may be handwashing, and another’s might be checking to see that the door is locked, a third person may perform religious rituals
Having obsessions and intrusive thoughts can be a part of being scrupulous (in this sense), too. You might find that you can’t stop thinking about Hell, or that, out of nowhere, you’ll have the thought that you’re a hopelessly bad person.
I’ve always wondered if members of other Christian denominations experience this, or if it’s just a Catholic thing.