"But" Catholics.

[serin]

I thought I had found a home within the Catholic Church but I am struggling (really struggling) with two aspects;

One is the discrimination towards people who are gay.

The second is the hypocrisy, when Jesus stated that we should love one another, surely that didn't come with conditions attached?. There is lots of cosying up in our church (s'long as it is with other Catholics) lots of collections for our already very priviledged offspring (to attend events or pretty up the already gorgeous school).

DD attends the school and nothing is valued there except academia and how rich your parents are. The G&T programme seems to be give a lot of precedence, it is all some of her friends talk about. This isn't sour grapes, she was asked to join but declined on the grounds that her friend wanted to attend but was told she wasn't clever enough!. I would love them to be involved in some sort of community projects outside of SVP. To be twinned with a school in a developing nation for instance or to allow their facilities to be used by other local groups.

The school down the road from them takes kids from tougher backgrounds, it is literally falling down. DD's friends call it chav central and I have heard their parents make many disparaging comments about it. But the teachers there are so committed and are trying to make a difference with very little resources.

DD would move there if she were not in the middle of GCSE coursework and both DS's will be going to "chav central".

I have been praying more (through lent) and this all feels so wrong. I do speak out and write letters and I tried to speak to the priest. The next week the sermon was about 'But Catholics' ie how there is nothing worse than someone who claims to be Catholic but doesn't like this or that.

I think that is a dangerous attitude as how is an organisation to grow or develop if it is not critiqued or reviewed?

We have redirected the monthly direct debit from the school to Unicef but what would you do? stay and keep protesting or walk?

I would also add that you should not judge a religion based on your experiences within one church. If you don't like worshipping at your local church then worship elsewhere.

My kids both go to state schools and not catholic ones as I want them to have a broad experience of religion. We don't worship at our nearest church, after trying all our local ones we settled on one around 6 miles away. It seems rather harsh to walk away due to experiences in one church. Just move onto the next one. Your local church obviously panders to the hypocrites who like to mouth worship, so leave them to it and find one which is more welcoming. Oh and mouth worship is not confined to the catholic church you know...

Rhubarb top posts

DreamingofSummer - i completely agree with you. People get away with bashing Christians and especially Catholics in a way that would never be acceptable if they spoke about black people or Muslims or Jews or indeed any other group in the same way. Yes, there are problems in the Church and no excuse for the terrible child abuse (which happens in secular intstitutions too) but people should think of the immense good the church does as well.

Rhubarb - you are right -Op should try another church perhaps.

I am totally a "but" Catholic. Or a Bad Catholic, as I tend to prefer.

Actually, I am a bit more than that at the moment, but even when I was not questioning whether it is an organisation I can continue to be part of, I was a Bad Catholic. And so were most of the Catholics I know. And a lot of the priests too.

Not bad, Progressive.

OP, forgive me if I am being dense here and missing something, but if there are some core values of the catholic church you disagree with (e.g. the ones about homosexuality) had you considered becoming a different flavour of christian that is more in line with your beliefs?

Yes I have considered other Christian traditions (husband CofE) but I believe in transubstantiation and it feels like I am held to ransom by the Church. Basically, if I don't believe this and this then I have no right to receive my Lord and saviour

I have cousins who are gay and it breaks my heart (and theirs) that they are treated so badly by a Church that they have been raised in. They work in caring professions and have hurt no one ever, yet they are not allowed to receive communion.

Neither is my friend who divorced her abusive husband (since she has formed a new relationship)

I think Marjorie has gained the right to bash the Catholic Church any way she wants. This is the Church, those in charge and many of whom should be answering to criminal charges and not just the actual abusers but those who knew and covered it up, all of them no matter how high it went. This isn't about prejudice (and there is prejudice against catholics) but about justice and to belittle it and the victims feelings is disgusting.

I can't believe that people are attacking marjoriew

Have a bit of bloody compassion.

Dreamingofsummer especially you what a revolting post.

Posts like that, I just can't get over it.

The child abuse was endemic, epidemic, extraordinarily serious and covered up, and continues to be covered up.

If you are a member of the RC church you need to face up to that and continue as you see fit. But to brush aside the experiences of all those thousands of abused people and children, to be so aggressive to a victim is just shocking and revolting.

Have a bit of fucking compassion, seriously.

Exactly. This isn't even about individual priests etc who secretly got away with abuse, there are people like that in every strata of life. The bigger problem is those in power who knew and covered it up and that is the Catholic Church and it was obvious where their priorities lay. How can you have an respect for that side of the organisation? Just makes it look like those in power have no though for their people, the ordinary Catholics, it's all about power. This is no reflection on ordinary members of the church who seem to be trying to live closer to their religion than those who are in charge.

Dreamingofsummer

I am curious about what your Priest has informed your congregation about the latest scandal to hit the Catholic Church in Spain, where it has been discovered that Nuns and priests were robbing newly born babies by telling the mothers a few hours after childbirth that the child had died and the priest had taken it away to be buried, without the mother getting to lay eyes on it again. The priest babies were then being sold/handed onto nice wealthy families who raised the child as their own and the mothers have had to live the a 30 years with the belief one of their children died when in actual fact they are now finding out that the graves are empty and somewhere there's an adult that is their child. There are between 1500 to 3000 cases being investigated at this moment and of course the church is doing all it can to hinder the investigations, with a vow of silence from the baby robbing nuns.

Have you had any information about this from the pulpit or are you being kept in the dark because he knows the chance of you reading the Spanish media is slim to none at all.

Makes you wonder who it is calling these people to there spiritual lifes and how god seems to get it wrong so often. And why is it the people who know about it are more interested in maintaining the myths and superstitions of the church rather than revealing the truth.

I will read the whole thread in a bit but one point from yuor OP which stood out Serin was the schooling issue. I am saddened to read that all they value is academia, my DS is autistic and has learnign difficulties, his Catholic school prides itself on the excellent SEN support it gives - it takes children who have failed in other schools and last year this included a child who had been excluded from three previous schools - our school took this child in and succeeded.

Likewise our church welcomes anyone in.