The RC church recently announced that gay couples could be blessed, tho not married.
I was raised Roman Catholic, but have been Atheist since grade school. I do not understand why someone who believes in Christ would follow a faith that disparages them. I apologize if this is an ignorant question, but what is it about “belief” that would require that the belief be practiced in the context of Catholicism, as opposed to any number of Protestant sects?
Most likely, one of two reasons:
1: They were raised Catholic, and consider it part of their identity.
2: They were looking at a variety of individual congregations, without specific regard for denomination, in their town, and the congregation that happened to be Catholic was the one they considered most welcoming, or where they fit in best, or the like.
And also possible,
3: They looked at a wide variety of policies, teachings, and actions of different denominations, and while they don’t agree with the Catholic Church on everything, they decided that other things that they did agree with were important enough to override that.
I’d say Chronos’s number 1 is the most common. One partner or the other was already Catholic.
Non-practicing Catholic here: We were taught that the RCC is the one, true church, the purest connection to God. And I mean it was ingrained when I was taught, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. We abandon the Church at our mortal peril.
So, I find it plausible that someone resolves their cognitive dissonance by concluding the Church is true, but has always been led by imperfect humans. So, still participating but rejecting the bad stuff as corruptions, not God’s will—a particular version of cafeteria Catholicism, IOW.
I guess I am by nature incapable of understanding such reasoning. As an Atheist, the commonalities between conservative protestantism and RC FAR outweigh the differences.
I can imagine someone believing in some supernatural being, and even going so far as to believe in the divinity of Christ. But when it comes down to choosing among the many sects that offer that, why choose the one that says I’m a sinner damned to hell?
And the “cafeteria Catholicism” is something I have a hard time getting my mind around. When I was a kid back in the 60s, tat was a significant insult. Now, it almost seems to describe acceptable behavior.
Full disclosure - I was born/raised on the NW side of Chicago. EVERYONE was Catholic. There were a couple of Lutheran churches, and I knew 1 Jew in grade school. My mom dragged us to church every Sunday, and while she required that we confess and take communion, she never did. After I was born as a rhythm baby, she used contraception, and refused to “confess” that as a sin. RC is such a weird religion.
I’m a bit confused by your confusion. If you were raised to believe that the Catholic Church directly descends from Jesus’s disciples and that it is the ONLY true path to God, and you never stopped believing that, you’d be a Catholic. It’s not exactly a choice.
Hell I don’t understand how people can remain Catholic after the child sex abuse scandals. But people still enter their children into Boy Scouts, so what do I know.
No, no, see, the things I disagree with the Church on are perfectly reasonable positions for me to take, and hardly relevant in any grand theological sense. But those other people disagree about really fundamental, important things, and their views are totally invalid, and they’re “cafeteria Catholics” at best and more likely just plain heretics. It’s simple!
I was raised Catholic, now identify as an agnostic catholic (I don’t know if there’s a god, but if there is, I try to be a good person like I was raised, and the God I don’t Believe in will get that. And I find the structure of Catholicism comforting, especially this time of year).
I still see it used as an insult online by the hardliners, the type that think the whole “anything but Latin mass was a mistake”. But just about every Catholic I know can admit to picking and choosing; they use birth control or they don’t accept how the church has dealt with scandals or they think abortion is a sin in the general case but that there are plenty of times where it’s still the right thing to do. When everyone is a cafeteria catholic, the sting of being called that isn’t there.
I know a lot of other versions of Christianity are more welcoming to gays, but when you come right down to it, you’re stuck with Paul in the Bible. There’s no version of Christianity that’s truly theologically pro-gay, though certainly some congregations are.
I don’t identify as Christian, in that I don’t believe in supernatural Jesus, but I do occasionally identify as Catholic since I was baptized as such and the family has been Catholic since they closed the last temple to Jupiter. Since I know the Catholics don’t want people like me, it pleases me that they have to take me anyway. Not that I go so far as to attend church or give them money, but it’s definitely the church I don’t attend—the others are nothing to me.
I’m not trying to justify the belief, but choosing another sect is just not a permissible option. People come up with all kinds of rationalizations that resolve any dissonance and let them sleep at night.
I know from this board that choosing atheism was a natural, organic process for many. For others it would amount to denying your parents, your culture, your tribe. It’s a trauma they can’t stomach.
I think this would be the predominant reason, and it’s probably the most nightmarish scenario one could imagine. While growing up, you come to the realization that you are gay in a church/home environment that is totally hostile to any and all forms of alternative genders and sexual relationships. I can’t imagine the emotional stress involved in that.
Indeed, some would turn the question around, and ask why Catholics would choose to be gay. Of course, being gay was never really a choice… but for a lot of folks, neither was being Catholic.
I agree. The gay Catholics that I know fall into this category, so far as I can tell. Our particular congregation is pretty open to gays, though they’re not going to run afoul of Rome and start performing same-sex marriages, either.
As a believer (a Conservadox Jew specifically) I think this is it. Is belief a choice? I dunno. It may be the way we are wired.
First, you are under the impression that religion is a choice when for a lot of people it’s inertia - I was raised Catholic so I’m going to be Catholic, not Lutheran, that sort of thing. I think for Catholics particularly, they are more likely to become atheist or agnostic or non-practicing rather than becoming Lutheran or Presbyterian. I’ve read descriptions of people moving and choosing a new church, being Presbyterian in one town in one town and Methodist in the next but to the extent that Catholics choose congregations, it’s whether they go to the Italian parish or the German parish or the not-particularly ethnic parish - but all Catholic. Second, as far as Catholicism being the one that says “sinner damned to hell” even now, Catholicism isn’t the only one - and 30 or 40 years ago, it was pretty much all denominations that taught that. And remember- that business about sinners doesn’t apply to being homosexual. It applies to homosexual activity , in exactly the same way that it applies to all sex that isn’t within marriage and open to procreation. So the reasons some gay people are Catholic are the same reasons some people who have pre-marital sex using birth control are Catholic.
The openness with which Catholics seem to just accept the scandals sometimes terifies me. The Irish comedian Ed Byrne once, on Mock the Week, was talking about some violent criminal let loose on the streets of London and said something like “My child walks to Catholic school and that walk to school will be the safest he’ll be all day!” to great laughter. And it hit me, like, yeah, they read about the widespread child rape, and priests being moved from one dioscese to another in a cloud of secrecy, but they say “Well, it’s still more important to me to have my kid learn his catechism during the weekedays and not have recess with Protestants, I guess we’ll just have to risk it.”
And not Catholicism, but an ex-rommate of mine used to be a person of faith and actually attended Liberty University; I’ve seen a picture of her standing with Jerry Falwell when he visited the dorms. She was realizing that she was gay right around the time the gay-bashing really took off in earnest in the curriculum. That was a brick in the wall when it came to her beliefs.
A lot of people are raised in families - for example racist - that they later mature and realize that they do not HAVE to believe and act the same. I realize we will not resolve all of this in this thread, but I find it amazing that one would maintain a specific belief, in the face of numerous major reasons to instead believe in something really really similar. Kinda like, why would you want to belong to a club that didn’t want you - or allowed you in only to insult you and let you do the menial tasks.
I wouldn’t say that my sexual orientation necessarily defines me, but it IS on the shortlist of things that do. I guess I am deficient in not being able to see myself in greatly conflicting ways.
Yes, there was a lot of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and more should have been done about it, and more still should be done about it. And those statements remain just as true if you replace “the Catholic Church” with any other institution.
Homeschooling isn’t an option for most parents. What else would you suggest? There have been similar child abuse scandals, including the part about authorities covering up for the abusers, at every sort of school, public, private, religious, or secular.
As a gay person, in addition to religion, this is also how I feel about the USA I grew up in, my ethnicity, my school… in other words, none of the clubs I belonged to wanted me, and the only club that did (gay community, 1980s) scared me because all I knew about it was propaganda. It’s not like religion was the ONLY place were being gay was considered deviant and problematic.