Catholic guilt?

[Felixfox]

I only went to catholic school for 3 years (first 3 years of school) and I am CONSTANTLY feelingly guilty . Is it the school or just me? It was a terrible place. I remember one of the fathers coming into our classroom just as a pupil was leaving as he was feeling sick. Father promptly sent him back to his desk for us all to pray, this boy was physically sick but we had to carry on with the prayer. His parting shot was a question. To a bunch of 6 year olds. Do you all pray before bed at night? We all mumbled yes. To which he replied,’Good, because otherwise you will go to hell.’ It scared the crap out of me. V complicated story with parents and my brother and I going there. My mother was a nun and left
’God will never forgive you’ and so maybe to usage some hideous and unfair guilt from that was to send us to a catholic school. The point is, I am nearly 50 and I still feel guilty all the time about pretty much anything. Will it go? I’ve tried counseling. What do I do? How do you leave a part of yourself behind?

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

Seriously though, thanks for supporting my point.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

'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.'

Mmmm no, I don't think so!😳

'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.'
I agree with this at any rate.

I was brought up in the Catholic church but go to an evangelical church now.
I have asked God to forgive me of my sins and He has forgiven me. I seldom feel guilty, maybe if I have a row with someone I might, but not often.
When Jesus died on the cross He took the punishment that we deserve for our sins, so that we don’t have to be punished. This is what the Bible teaches - that if we believe what Jesus did for us, and want to be in right relationship with God, we can ask Him for forgiveness and at that point we are born again, forgiven and that God sees us as being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. That doesn’t mean we have a license to go through life sinning and not making any effort, but it means we can relax and enjoy our relationship with God.

This is a very good idea.
People here are posting some strange ideas and Catholicism. They may have been true in the past, when society as a whole was very different and these views weren't so strange.
But times have changed and the Church has moved on. I know lots of Catholics and I certainly don't think any of them have the sort of ideas floating around on here.
That's why I think OP might find it helpful to talk to a Catholic counsellor, or someone else who is trained to explain the teachings of the Church in a way that reflects modern thinking. This might help her put her feelings of guilt in proportion.

I think guilt is something that comes from your nature, and your experiences can make it worse or ease it. I'm Irish Catholic. School until the 70s was pretty ruthless, I was there in 80s and 90s and thankfully the caning and extreme discipline my parents endured was long gone, but I was told many times I might go to hell and had a few nuns constantly making us feel like we were bad. The whole race isn't going around feeling guilty about everything now. My parents generation, those in my family at least, went from devout and fearful to quite liberal and carefree. They are wealthy and know how to enjoy life, all the Catholic paraphernalia was chucked out in the 90s and they don't feel a bit of remorse. I however feel guilty about lots of things, I just do and can't seem to help it. My sister never feels a moments guilt (even when she should!) yet we were brought up the same

I am not telling anyone about anything. I am illustrating a point.

The thread is about Catholic guilt. And here you are, saying I don't know anything about Christianity. Basically the "no real Christian" accusation. And as an ex Christian, I can now add your reply to the hundreds of other times I have had that put to me, and the thousands of times I have heard it.

And it is no wonder it is used so much by Christians, given that here are over 50 thousand Christian denominations these days. Even Christians can't agree on what a "real Christian" is.

You appear to think I am ridiculing a religion, showing dis-respect, but here is the crux. What did I post that is not true ? What is the fundamental basis of Christianity ?

Is it eternal life in return for worshipping a single God ? A God that apparently impregnated a woman, and who then sacrificed his son so somehow something called sin, something that he apparently invented, would magically be washed away. That there is a bad character called Satan who wants to tempt you away from God. Ohh. and if you are tempted away, then his son (that he had killed). will judge you and decide if it is eternity in heaven or eternity in the fire.

Variations of course depending on denomination.

Oh, and this God that demands we worship him. The same God of the Old Testament. The same God who went from being an angry vengeful God who liked the smell of burning animals, done genocide and slavery, to suddenly becomes an all loving caring God. After He said He can't change.

This God, that like the millions of others humanity has invented over our 100k or so years: absolutely zero evidence that any of them exist.

The OP did not invent the term "Catholic guilt". That is a very real thing, and it exists. Unlike the entity, the fear of which, some people use to instill this guilt into.

Quote: " This might help her put her feelings of guilt in proportion."

What guilt has to be in proportion ? In proportion to what ?

I am totally for freedom of religion, and freedom from religion. I tend to advocate for the latter. Take religious guilt out of the equation.

‘Take religious guilt out of the equation.’
Yes, that’s what I was advocating

‘What guilt has to be in proportion ? In proportion to what ?’
Her guilt. In proportion to what’s reasonable.

Like I said, religious people just don’t think in the way you’re portraying, so there’s nothing to get into a conversation about,
You’re ridiculing something that’s only in your head.

I am not ridiculing anything.

So you are saying the way to remove Catholic guilt is to seek " more modern " Catholics to advise on what Catholic guilt is now out of date. That the way iron age writings are interpreted has changed from just a few years back.

I reckon an alternate would be for the OP to consider dr-converting from religion totally. One can do it oneself. Loads of resources out there.

Because once it is understood and accepted that there is no God or Gods, or sons of Gods, then any religion induced guilt might just melt away.

I'm not RC but have worked in RC schools.

I'm not a believer either, but it depresses me that many people dislike Christianity because they think the Catholic church IS Christianity.

Most of what the church teaches is made-up stuff and not to be found anywhere in the Bible. I have a number of ex-RC friends who feel the same as you, OP, and older people (esp women) who remember being bullied into submission by the local priest about a) birth control and b) sending their offspring to RC schools. In the 60s, the priest would visit every single day to break one woman's resolve on both these matters.

It's not Christianity - it's control. If you are still a believer, read the gospels etc and use that as a guide, not what the Church says.