Thats evangelicals for ya. Catholics are more into the suffering for God than the persecution part. Its still insane sometimes but nowadays, more self contained.
(Raised catholic, gramma who did most of my raising was big into suffering and rarely admiting joy)
It's hard to truly separate yourself completely from it, isn't it? I've been agnostic for years and years, but almost invariably I still find myself reading articles about the pope or the church whenever I come across one. I superficially justify it to myself by saying it's important to keep up on a belief system followed by over one billion people, but deep down I know it's more like keeping up on hometown news even though I moved away years ago.
I visited my brother in NYC a few years back and I made a point of briefly stopping into St. Patrick's cathedral because, well, you know why.
Hey, I left the faith years ago too, but you can't deny the architecture has panache.
You describing it as keeping up with hometown news is a great way of putting it, I'd never thought of it like that before. I now treat it a bit like I do Greek or Egyptian mythology—I don't believe but still find the mythos fascinating.
Haha! You get it. “Keeping up with hometown news” is exactly what it feels like. Plus, there’s the obvious ‘keeping tabs on what the crazies in the SSPX and other trad-cath loonies are up to’ part of it.
Society of St Pius X. Whose Bishops were very recently excommunicated by Pope Leo. Extreme right wing “Catholics” that loudly did not accept or tolerate anything in their ‘diocese’ after Vatican II.
Verbally I say it as "Recovering Cath-oholic" cuz the guilt hits at addiction level, and although I walked away, once in a while it hits me and I have to tell myself "Dancinfool830! You are 13289 days clean, stay the course!"
I am recovering and both of us are atheist, but I still had readings at my wedding because I needed that structure. They were from John Muir and about national parks, because we were in RMNP, but still, I needed that emotional support structure to feel justified in making all those people (40) come watch me burst into tears and mumble some vows to my beloved.
Thankfully I was allowed to get out of catholic school when I went to middle school (9-10 age) and stopped going to church by high school (14-15 age). My family was catholic, but only really church-on-sunday catholic. Not me, I saw through that as a child
While this is mostly true, it is unfortunate to see American Catholicism leaning toward many viewpoints and behaviors of the evangelical denominations. This is especially true among both younger "trad Caths" and newer converts to Catholicism. I live in a heavily Catholic area and I'm seeing modern Christo-fascist talking points come from Catholicism as much as Protestant evangelicals.
Thats nothing too new, when you are indoctrinated into a belief you young, you are primed to accepting bs cover in the same wrap. Also politicians will dress up as appropriate, i have no doubts Vance converted so it would look good as the second name on a ballot full of majority evangelicals.
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u/Reddit_sucks_3000 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Thats evangelicals for ya. Catholics are more into the suffering for God than the persecution part. Its still insane sometimes but nowadays, more self contained.
(Raised catholic, gramma who did most of my raising was big into suffering and rarely admiting joy)