Catholic guilt?

I'm afraid you really don't know anything at all about Christianity if you think that is what it's about. I suggest you find out more about it before telling us what's what.
Loads of perfectly sensible people are Christians, and they certainly don't think in the way you portray.
I think you should show some respect for other people's beliefs and not ridicule them..

I was brought up very strict RC, mass every Sunday, Catholic schools from age 7. I describe myself now as atheist but I still have huge guilt feelings which I think is a hangover from childhood. Guilt about what I eat, if I’m too sick to go to work, everything. I’m aware I’m a people pleaser and I think that ties in with feeling guilty for letting people down.

Haven't read all the posts but my grandmother's hideous childhood in an Irish Catholic orphanage left a legacy of paranoia and self-loathing that pervaded her children’s lives and still has knock-on effects in my generation.

My grandmother stopped going to church for a while in her early 20s, having moved to England and married someone CofE. She then developed a serious autoimmune disease and went blind. She was convinced this was a punishment from God, and spent the rest of her life begging in absolute terror for forgiveness.

She used to tell her children every time they left the house that God was everywhere and knew everything, and there was nothing they could hide from Him.

My father grew up wracked with fear and paranoia that lasted his entire life. He also had a sixth sense for spotting predatory men in schools and activity clubs when we were children, and would never let us go on school residentials. I suspect this instinct was hard-earned.

I’m sure plenty of people have good experiences of Catholicism but I don’t know anyone my age or older who was anything short of traumatised by growing up in a devout Catholic environment.

Oh, I don’t think I’d put Catholicism at the top, or indeed anywhere near, of the religions who centre a vengeful, judgemental, tyrannical god. Catholicism’s not terribly interested in the Bible — I think I’d go with one of the Biblically literalist sects of fundamentalist Christians who like playing Bible bingo with the OT as much nastier in that sense.

Well the priest wouldn't be able to marry them but it doesn't mean they need to threaten excommunication. I'm divorced and remarried, couldn't marry in the church but still welcome.

I remember being teased by kids when I was about seven, they said my mother would go to hell as she wasn't a Catholic. Sister told them off and said it was rubbish, my mother was baptised so it wasn't a problem.

I think I was maybe lucky with the majority of priests and nuns I've known.

funnily enough my grandad who was my step grandmother’s husband he was actually brought up Catholic (in Germany) and confirmed but he didn’t practice Catholicism as an adult. It was the fact he was a divorcee that the Catholic Church objected to.

Oh please just ditch the guilt .... pick a day and ditch it from that moment.

What you need to know is that all gods are projections of humans with all their assorted virtues and failings. Some religions latch onto the good things about people and postulate a benign god. Others ... with catholicism at the top of the list .... pick the bad aspects of humanity and model their god on these: power, vengeance, cruelty, greed, punishment.

Can you honestly believe that a divine being who is capable of creating the complexity of universes upon universes is imbued with the sort if pettiness that might make it want to impose guilt on the creatures it has created? The sort of person who loads children (and then adults) with guilt is not speaking for a divine being ... they are indulging their desire for power ... they are pure masochist.

Just ditch the guilt ... live your life by kindness ... and allow yourself to fail now and again.

Do not allow this dreadful stuff to rule your life ... ditch the guilt and begin to live.

To be fair I lived near an unmarried mother's home run by a different denomination. The girls seemed very unhappy but I don't know if they were abused. To be honest I blame the parents of the girls, they didn't need to send their daughters away.

My father was brought up by my very religious Catholic granny. Some of her many kids married Catholics and some didn't. Some like my family had a non Catholic parent but brought up Catholic and a couple brought their children up CofE. One of his sisters had an affair with her boss. No one got threatened by the priest. Granny went to weddings and Christenings in non Catholic churches.

My mother liked the priest and said he was always nice to her but she was mortified when he visited her when I was born, second child just before her 2nd anniversary. He told her the church did not think she should be having a baby every year and offered to have a word with my father. She declined his kind offer

My 2 aunts went to La Retraite convent in Clapham. Their mum (catholic) had been threatened with ex communication if she didn’t bring up her daughters as catholic. She married a divorcee. The nuns at the school mostly told them stuff like they were going to hell.

Haha I didn't realise lying in your first confession was so widespread! I also lied. I told the priest I had been mean to my sister, because I didnt want to confess to my real sin of building campfires in the woods. Then I was eaten up with guilt, both about making fires (a squirrel might walk into the hot ash and burns it's paws!) And about lying. As a child I used to sleep with my arms crossed over my chest like a vampire so I would be in the 'right' position in case I died overnight. Insanity. No wonder I became an adult with anxiety.

You can't win really with Catholicism. If someone asked the Pope "Are you a good catholic?" I'd expect him to say no. It's the only correct answer a catholic can give.

Nobody is, or can be, a good catholic. Failing is the point. It's an impossible bar to reach. Nobody can live an entire life with no fleeting thoughts of annoyance, greed, tiredness or desires. It was designed that way on purpose, to keep you constantly doubting yourself.

Well nuns and priests vary. I went to two Catholic schools, the nuns were great teachers, yes strict but not unfair. The parish priest was lovely, a cousin of my father's was an absolutely lovely priest. When the parish priest died we got a hellfire and damnation priest so I used to go to mass and confession with the curate.

I don't have any great Catholic guilt, I mean I feel bad about somethings in my life but not related to religion.

The "It's just you" posters are being quite unkind. The expression Catholic guilt, wouldn't exist if it only applied to one person!

Also, it's not just OP, even just on this thread.

The Magdalen sisters were saints I'll have you know!

Seriously though, thanks for supporting my point.

That is why I said 'in comparison to vicars'

I never suggested vicars weren't at it too, I said priests were at it more, because they were.

@FernFaery Catholics have been responsible for shocking atrocities until fairly recently. I'm in my mid-50s, so not ancient and I was born in a Catholic mother and baby home and have done considerable research into my own home and the shocking history of Catholic laundries and mother and baby homes both in the UK and Ireland. The very high number of dead infants found buried in the grounds of some of these homes, to my mind is worse than suicide bombers. The priest to whom I made my first confession and who said mass at my first holy communion was about 15 years ago found guilty of sexually abusing the kids in the care home run by the nuns in our parish. I went to school with those children. Does it have to be suicide bombers for it to be an atrocity?

Generally speaking members of the IRA are Catholic too.

I am a baptised Catholic and have no feelings of guilt. I did not go to a Catholic school though, as my mum felt it better I went to one which was a short walk away. To be fair, it was a good school.

I think it depends on parents and the schools concerned.

Hold on. Have you actually read any of the Quran? Many of the verses ARE extremist, there are plenty of verses in the Bible that aren't too peachy either.

We are talking about how religion can have a negative and lasting impact on people, which is why I said:

'Of course how people are affected is dependant on what is taught in the holy book you follow, who is teaching it, how it has been interpreted and your own moral compass.'

What leads to atrocities is how the individual interprets the word of God in their book and how it is taught.

I don't know why you are focusing on suicide bombers specifically. I used that ONCE as an example. I haven't said there have been suicide bombers from other religions so stop suggesting I have! I said atrocities have been carried out in the name of all religions through the centuries because that's a fact.

Bottom line, religious indoctrination CAN be a terrible thing.

i also lied in my first confession! Then I lay awake worrying that I’d lied 😆 I couldn’t think of anything to tell him age 7

Haha that was me too. I wasn’t a bad kid (didn’t dare be with all those hell threats lol) so
my biggest ‘sin’ was probably lying to the priest in the confessional about my usually non/existent bad behaviour. I did scrape the barrel a few times and said I didn’t do my homework on time or something equally banal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cje0y3gqw1po

The CofE was at it too, they just covered it up better.

Er no, that demonstrates how extremist Islamic ideology leads to atrocities, unless you’re willing to supply us with the details of the last Catholic/Sikh/Hindu/Buddhist/Wiccan suicide bomber..?

I didn't say Catholics had blown themselves up. I said 'people' namely Muslims. Though atrocities have been committed in name of all religions. This was to demonstrate that religious indoctrination from a young age can be so powerful that it can lead to people killing themselves and others. Of course how people are affected is dependant on what is taught in the holy book you follow, who is teaching it, how it has been interpreted and your own moral compass.

Amongst Catholics the negatives tend to manifest as a lifelong fear of death and Hell, plus feelings of guilt and shame for sinning. I mean we could also go into the fact that making subjects such as sex and masturbation entirely taboo can potentially create such unhealthy attitudes around what should be normal, that it actually creates deviancy.

Odd there have been so many paedo priests in comparison to C of E vicars, who are allowed to marry and have sex don't you think?

Yes. Some people grew up in a kindly catholic environment. Some in a harsh, guilt inducing one.
Some have supportive parents. Some have unkind ones
Some might be intrinsically more prone to anxiety. Lots of variation

I feel very similar to this. And I grew up in a relatively lowkey Catholic home with one non-believer parent (another person to pray for!).