Calling Catholics ... both practising and disillusioned ....

[Countingthegreyhairs]

If you are Catholic, may I ask if you sometimes feel disillusioned with the church, and whether or not you have doubts, and if so, how and why do you keep going?

For example:

• do you think it's important to attend church regularly?
• can you rationalise or 'block out' the bits you disagree because of the good of the whole?
• do you hesitate when you say "I believe in one, true Catholic and apostolic church"?
• have you reassessed your beliefs and if so, what conclusions have you reached?

I was born and raised Catholic and so is my dh and my education was traditional and rather literal (to put it mildly!). We want dd to be raised as Catholic but this has led me to reassess and question many of my beliefs. I'm not just talking about the issue of contraception here, it's things such as the male church hierarchy, the lack of understanding about family life (for an organisation that purports to support this - the understanding can be woefully lacking) the lack of relevance and dynamism (happy clappy is not my thing either but surely there's a happy medium) ... Also, I can no longer truly believe that the Catholic church is necessarily "more truthful" than other established religions.

On the one hand I agree with the view that Pope's are not out there to win popularity contests or pander to popular beliefs. They are setting a standard which few of us can live up to but it's important to set a bench-mark to which we can all strive. On the other hand, numbers are dwindling and they don't see to care why so many members of the church feel disillusioned and confused.

There are so many good things about the Catholic church that are never spoken about, for example, I like it's classlessness - the fact that going to mass in W. Europe is probably the one remaining place where all different classes can meet under one roof. I personally like the emphasis on the importance of individual human life, the vulnerable, the young, the elderly, disabled, ill, marginalised etc etc. The papal encyclicals on truth and social justice are probably some of the finest, most intelligent and humane documents on the subject ever written.

But then all of those higher values can so easily be undermined by one's weekly experience at church. I'm probably not expressing myself very well - and I realise that questions about personal beliefs are very, well, ... personal .... but I would love to know other people's views and how do you rationalise the good and the bad?

I think the contraception thing is complete pants, tbh. We're illegally (in church terms) using contraception because if I conceive while I'm on my medication, it would be very bad.
I was advised by many authority figures that to use contraception in our situation would be sin, and we had the choice of either using NFP and one person even said NFP was still contraception, so we should just abstain. Until my menopause. What kind of out of touch little pimple of a celibate priest thought that was a healthy move for a marriage.

The only thing I really agree with the church on is abortion, and they completely undercut their own position on that by refusing to support contraception.

...And breathe

But you see, instead of making their voices heard on issues such as contraception, people just stop going to church or switch religions. We NEED to tell them how we feel!

The church does have a tendency to have a "one rule fits all" policy which doesn't work. People are individual, every case is unique, and tbh many priests use their own discretion when deciding on things such as marriage, communion and so on.

I would love to be still Catholic. I would love to go to Mass every Sunday and be better integrated into the local community.
But I can't. There is too much of a gap between what I believe and what they believe. Granted our local priests are very nice and relatively liberal; they do refer to aspects of modern life in their sermons, for example, one recently referred to the "end of a marriage" which some of the older priests would regard as heresy, but I cannot reconcile some of the beliefs with what I know to be the truths that I believe in.
If I go in and say "I believe in one catholic and apostolic church" I am saying in effect that I believe divorce is never right, one should never use contraception, to terminate a pregnancy is always wrong, that someone in a loving gay relationship is committing a mortal sin and I simply cannot stand there and agree with all that.
And apparently Jesus doesn't like you being there if you don't take the whole package. A bible phrase that sticks out in my mind is
"I will vomit the lukewarm Christian out of my mouth" or words to that effect! And if it's all or nothing, I'll take nothing.

chipmonkey, did Jesus say that? Or was it my personal favourite, St. Paul?

I don't say the creed. I don't feel the need to announce to all and sundry what my beliefs are. The church is full of hypocrites anyway.

Read the New Testament, read what Jesus actually said and did. You'll find that the catholic church itself has broken many many rules and if we had behaved like that, we'd be refused communion and even excommunicated! You have every right to be able to celebrate Mass as much as the next person. Jesus never turned anyone away and he never would, divorced or otherwise. Just by participating in Mass does not mean you accept everything the Church decrees. You have your own voice.

I haven't stopped going. And if we're the only ones using contraception, my name is Herbert Handwangler.

There isn't one size fits all, damn right. And I have a lot of respect for people whose convictions mean they just can't stay. For me, the good outweighs the bad for now.

MM, it's from Revelation, so it's was either Jesus in a heavenly vision, or John on Patmos, depending on your view of the scriptural record

Well, maybe he didn't say it then, could have been just hearsay and gossip!

I am a catholic as is my dh and dd.

However I feel that my relationship with Jesus is dependant on the Catholic Church and I have told my priest this. I like the community feeling of mass and feel strongly that the Catholic Faith is the true faith, Jesus word and everything else stems from this beginning and is a distortion of it.

I am not saying that Catholics have it right.Its so steeped in tradition and some of its practices do not seem to follow what Jesus would have wanted.For instance though I do think man was meant to be with woman where does this leave gay people who can be very good christians? People do not choose to be gay and I cannot see Jesus turning his back on them somehow.

For me its how good a person you try to be what will be judged and only God can do this not the Church.

I am a catholic as is my dh and dd.

However I feel that my relationship with Jesus is dependant on the Catholic Church and I have told my priest this. I like the community feeling of mass and feel strongly that the Catholic Faith is the true faith, Jesus word and everything else stems from this beginning and is a distortion of it.

I am not saying that Catholics have it right.Its so steeped in tradition and some of its practices do not seem to follow what Jesus would have wanted.For instance though I do think man was meant to be with woman where does this leave gay people who can be very good christians? People do not choose to be gay and I cannot see Jesus turning his back on them somehow.

For me its how good a person you try to be what will be judged and only God can do this not the Church.

By the way I am a divorced Catholic.My first marriage ended and I got permission to remarry in the church.It was a long process but it did show some flexabilty

Annulment.

My mother had the same. Can't say I'm a fan myself.

Agree with the rest of your double post though!

Crikey - loads more responses while I was away - thanks for posting everyone and for "sharing" (hate that word in this context but can't think of a better one!) your own beliefs. And thank you for the useful links Prof Plumb and ScampaD. Will definitely pick up a copy of the book and look in to the RCIA course.

Whenever the subject of the RC church is raised in rl one always comes across a number of people who have been hurt really badly. And it's evidently no different here on Mmsnet. It's this alienation of people that is one of my bugbears. It's so sad that so many of you have had hurtful experiences, partic. SSSAndy2, Karen 999 ChipMonkeyPumpkinNorks (great name by the way).

Morticia'sMmother - I entirely agree with you "we need to tell them how we feel" but there isn't really any legitimate outlet/forum for that is there? It's all one way. When you say "I don't mind telling the Church what I think of it either" - how do you actually do that, through what channels if you don't mind me asking??

I agree about the contraception issue and the contraception/HIV issue is incomprehensible to me. Agree with you entirely on that and the rest of your posts ChocolatePeanut and Pan.

However, having started the thread feeling very disillusioned I now feel compelled (for some incomprehensible reason - probably Catholic guilt ) to defend the church in terms of its riches. I concede that the wealth of the Vatican is vast, but if you look at a local level in all the parishes, there isn't a lot of spare cash flowing. The priest who married dh and me didn't let us know until the very last minute if he could attend the wedding reception after mass. I was a little put out by this until I discovered that he wanted to come "properly dressed" and couldn't afford a jacket to wear .... and then I felt so and . I'm glad to say he came - jacketless - I couldn't have cared if he was wearing a bin bag frankly. But it did give me pause for thought ... . For all the priests out there who are insensitive, dogmatic, sexist and hierarchical there are quite a few who are struggling away, working all hours, with no money and very little support doing the very best they can. It's a hellishly lonely job ... (And yes, I am a supporter of married priests in case you are wondering!)

Hope you manage to find a way through DarrellRivers ....

Well, since you ask. I harrass my local priest, I write letters to bishops and to the Pope, I write letters to the catholic newspapers such as The Universe. You can also join discussion groups within the church and make your feelings known there. You'll find a lot of people agreeing with you, and where there are numbers there is power.

Get a group of you all writing letters, organising a petition, and you will have an impact. If we all did that, the church would have to respond.

I'm practising my Catholic faith in the C of E, if you're interested, having been born and bred a RC, and staying such into my 20s ... couldn't quite handle the feeling of judgement on me for being divorced/remarried.

However them were the rules, and I broke them. What I wish was I'd had more support at the time of my marriage breakup. But I don't feel bitter to the RCC, I'm happy where I am now.

That's impressive lobbying Morticia's Mother. If you don't mind me asking yet another question, do you ever get a response, satisfactory or otherwise?

MaryBS - I commend you for not being bitter -but it's awful to hear from another person who's felt judged ... . If we can't feel at home in our own parish churches - warts and all - then were will we? Coincidentally, my dh keeps saying (light-heartedly at the moment but who knows?) that he might 'go over' to the CofE.

Bit of background: I am currently attending RCIA classes with a view to becoming a Catholic. My husband is a cradle Catholic and we would like to raise our son as a Catholic.
I am also from a big Irish Catholic family - my parents left the church before I was born and chose not to baptise me or raise me with religion, however, because my grandparents and whole extended family were devout Catholics, I'm not a 'stranger' to the religion, iyswim.

I am currently struggling massively with the RC attitude towards abortion, which is obviously a fundamental RC belief. So far I haven't raised this with the lady who is taking our RCIA classes or the parish priest because I am afraid that when I do, I might as well get up and walk out of the door, and I have to be 100% sure I am ready to do that. There are so many things I love about going to church - it really has changed my life in such a positive way and I am absolutely loving the sense of community, the catholic toddler group and community groups, the joy of communal worship on a Sunday morning and so many other things about the RC church...but I am and have long been pro-choice and I am unwavering in that. I believe in a woman's right to choose and I will NEVER believe differently, and that's just not compatible with the catholic faith, is it?

Interested to hear from other RCIA-ers or practising Catholics with similar beliefs to my own...

Love Angel. I think that there are thousands, if not millions of people in the church with the same beliefs as yours. You get to choose your own opinion and you have the right to express it but the church is not going to change its mind on this one imo. For the church, being anti abortion is not a knee jerk reaction, its due to a belief that all life is sacred because all life involves a relationship with God and to kill a person, including the unborn you are interfering with that relationship. There is also the point that the rights of the weak are not protected if they limit the freedom of the strong. Individual freedom and choice is more highly reguarded in our society than ever before at the expense of the unborn, the poor, the sick.
My stand on abortion is, I understand that it is necessary to have safe abortion for people who want it and I don't think it should be decriminalised but I don't like it. I hope I am never in a postion where I would decide to have one.
Th church would find my attitude totally unacceptable and I can see there point, but its not a perfect world. They would find my attitude towards homosexuality unacceptable too but thats a whole other discussion.

There is more to being a Catholic than being able to list all the things that we are against. I think we should try more often to say what we are for.

Its not compulsary to agree with everything that the Pope says. Some people who do haven't really put much thought into it.

Hmm, tricky one.

I don't think having opinions that differ from orthodox catholic teaching is in itself a reason to leave the church -- after all, parliamentary democracy is generally considered to be the best of all political systems, yet it has given us the Iraq war, the poll tax and political scandals too numerous to mention. We stick with it despite its glaring shortcomings because there is no obviously better system, and because if all the people who disagreed left, then there'd be no-one left to fight the other corner.

Abortion, hum. I think there is some sense in Catholic teaching that all human life has value. I can't square in my head the notion that a foetus inside the womb at (say) 23 weeks has less value than it would have 24 hours later if it were born prematurely the following day. I think there is an argument worth having about whether the status of a 5- or even a 10-week embryo is the same as that of a 23-week foetus, or a full-term baby, but that is not an argument that the church, or society at large, is currently geared up to have.

There are people within the Catholic church whose opinions on abortion cover pretty much most of the spectrum from pro-life to pro-right-to-choose. Having said that, I think most catholics, including the vast majority who accept that the church's teaching on contraception is an outdated nonsense, would have more cautious attitudes to dismissing the teaching on abortion. In particular I think many would feel that some of what the church teaches about the right to life (which also encompasses end-of-life issues and attitudes to disability) state important truths that are maybe at risk of being overlooked by other interest groups. Also bear in mind that many catholics realise the distinction between private belief and public legislation -- I suspect most practising catholics, however liberal, would be inclined to support the current moves to reduce the time limit to 20 weeks, but I'm sure that there would be far, far fewer, particularly among the under-40s, who would want to see abortion outlawed completely.

I would like to see the church having much more subtle and differentiated discussions about abortion than appear to be taking place atm, but conversely I would also like to see the pro-abortion lobby having a more sophisticated discussion than merely assuming a woman should have an absolute right to choose at all stages of pregnancy. I think there is a great deal of deliberate over-simplification on both sides, which relates poorly to people's actual experience.

I see no problem with holding the opinions that I do while still remaining in the church. I do however think that you need to be slightly careful about the battles you pick in public, as priests and religious are in an even more difficult position than the rest of us wrt private beliefs and public teaching. I think you would be unlikely to get a helpful response to your difficulties if you put a priest or an RCIA teacher on the spot in front of the group. If you really want to explore the issues further rather than just acknowledging your own beliefs privately, it would be worth finding a priest at the more liberal end of the spectrum and having a private discussion.

@ frogs and prof plum - What sensitive, intelligent and thorughly sensible responses from you both. You have given me food for thought. Thank you :-)

Being a Catholic has its problems, but one thing it does make you do is think and feel. Even if you have doubts yourself, it's not a bad start for your child to be introduced to the faith. It won't disable their power of choice, and later on they can decide for themselves. Meantime, even the apparently empty rituals can serve the purpose of bringing a spiritual world to their attention. I think being a Catholic gives you a sense of morality that you never lose, even if you drift away from the church.

I've recently come across a pretty distasteful case of someone brought up with more secular beliefs, where the word "caring" was like an automatic word, a mantra. They were the kind of person who would be the first to lay flowers and teddy-bears at the railings of Buckingham Palace in memory of Princess Diana, but wouldn't bother too much when their own grandmother died. Put into the wrong environment, that person lost all moral anchorage and lapsed into some pretty degenerate behaviour. My feeling is that a Catholic upbringing does give you some inner moral core that holds up under pressure better than it does when your morals are simply the package deal of a secular, humanist upbringing. As a result of my own Catholic upbringing, I know right from wrong, and when I'm drifting I know I'm drifting, and I never try to pretend that it's anything else.

They used to say, Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, and I think that's true.

just looking through this area before I put my own thread up, what a wonderful discussion. so much food for thought.

I had a long talk with my parish priest on abortion and he said (my beliefs rather like Frogs, plus anxiety about the number of women dying in unsafe abortions when they are not legal, and also - although I didn't discuss this with the priest - the Church doesn't have much to say about rapists, including husbands who force sex on their wives, surely they bear some responsibility too, the abortion debate seems to be entirely directed at women's responsibilty for choosing abortion, rather than men's role also in beginning pregnancies that are not wanted.

PP said that it was ok for me to remain in the church and that the place needed a variety of voices to move slowly...

thanks again for all your excellent thoughts...

Have just re-visited this thread after a long time. What brilliant posts. Feeling less disillusioned by the day!