Can we have a positive thread about Catholicism?

[PadgettsDream]

There is currently a thread running where there is a lot of criticism of the Catholic Church which is in many cases fair enough and it needs to be discussed but that thread in my opinion often strays into outright anti-Catholic sentiment and even bigotry against Catholics and Catholicism in general.

So I wonder if anyone would like a space to talk about the positives of the Church? I myself was raised Catholic, went to a convent School and it was wonderful really. I did not have any bad experiences and the Church has always been a source of strength and comfort for me. It doesn't dominate my life, I'm not brainwashed by it but its been an important foundation for me and I am thankful for it. In my own family history the Church stepped in and helped when nobody else would.

Any other positive stories?

So let us say , what would happen if we took Mike Pilavachi, Ravi Zacharias and all other abusers and started posting against protestantism. No good. Is it

Yes, I’ve NC for this. I want to preface this by saying I don’t think the Catholic Church is innocent by any stretch of the imagination, and being what I would describe as a ‘liberal’ Catholic I struggle with some of the teachings. However, I get a deep sense of happiness and contentment from my faith, the core of it, and being in church. I also feel a strong sense of community. As a child I went tk a Catholic primary school and Mass every Sunday, although was never pushed into it. I had a kind of ‘moment’ at age 10 where I was struggling with my faith and then something in my brain just clicked, almost as if God was speaking to me (odd I know) and since then I’ve never doubted the truth of Christianity, even though I have made the decision at points to give it a back seat iyswim. I drifted away from it from 18-32 and came back when I had my children. When I came back, was shy at first and used to sit awkwardly at the back of church…then I went through a really hard time with miscarriages and plucked up the courage to call the local PP - I didn’t know where else to turn. He was so kind and also my faith really helped me through it all. After Covid I remember going back to Mass for the first time and it was a really spiritual experience - I really felt Gods presence there. Also, love the liturgy - the Easter vigil and Good Friday services can move to tears. I suppose I also like the routine of it. No matter what is going on in your life, the liturgical year with its celebrations and rituals will always be there…it hurts when people criticise the church, but I also agree with a lot of the criticism which is a weird place to be 🙈. I often think of this line in a hymn to describe my journey ‘There’ve been times when I’ve turned from His presence, and I’ve walked other paths, other ways. But I called on his name in the dark of my shame, and his mercy was gentle as silence’ I hope my DD’s find faith, but I would never push it on them- they need to find it themselves.

@Maireas It really is I can't believe Mumsnet has let so much of it go undeleted its about the worst prejudice I've seen on here in a long time. I am not saying delete the whole thing but at least comment on the awful bigotry.

@JustaChristian Thanks you for that! Many people are just very uneducated on Catholicism and have no experience of our Church then just repeat what others have told them. The Orthodox and Catholic Church have much in common.

@Yeswecan12 That's such a beautiful post, yes it can be difficult but we need to see beyond the sins of men and hold on to our faith and the Catholicism that goes beyond what men do.

On the topic of martyrdom (and concomitant humanity), which has come up here, I highly recommend the novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo.

Martyrdom has been called "that inconvenient witness" for good reason in a world determined to make the same mistakes over and over again.

That's a beautiful hymn, @Yeswecan12 .
Thanks for that book recommendation, @mathanxiety

Peace and hope is what I get from my faith.
and in return, i hope to be able to share that peace and hope with others by being a good citizen of the catholic community.
Like many my interpretation is much more kind and inclusive but my interpretation not being in keeping with some RC views does not cause me to look elsewhere to other faiths.
I have a RC website that i refer to daily. It includes prayer, the daily reading, and inspiration into how i can put that into practice. I'm retired now but I would try to apply the acceptance and need to persevere into my work with others.
I do think the world would be a better place if more people believed at this point i'm happy regardless of their faith if they simply believe in the power of God.

yes, catholic churches all over the world are hundreds of thousands. They are all different, like Orthodox, like Protestant. If we believe in God we want to spread His love, so what is the point to spew hatred. No point.

What's the website called, please @greenspaces4peace ?

@Maireas Sacred Space - Daily Prayers Archive - Sacred Space
if it takes you to the main homepage you want the daily prayer.

Who are these people who are 'trying to stack' the court? Your insistence that some shadowy "they" are plotting nefariously is disappointing.

Last time I looked, the overwhelming majority of people voting for Donald Trump and other GOP candidates were residents of states where the dominant religious affiliation - by a country mile - is protestant/ fundamentalist Christian. In fact, the places where Democrats tend to find success at the polls are RC majority states or states where there are big cities with millions of RC residents of European descent - Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California...

Do you have a complaint about the overwhelmingly white, Anglo Saxon, protestant males who dominated the SC for about 200 years, during which women couldn't vote, and millions were enslaved? For about 50-100 of those years, latterly, the composition of the court did not reflect the fact that millions and millions of Jewish and RC immigrants (from Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Poland, etc) had settled in the country, beginning in the 1840s. Is that a problem?

You could also complain about the lack of representation of women - half the population in most cases - regardless of religious affiliation or skin colour, everywhere, all through history.

I've got the printed book version of Sacred Space - a lovely thing to have

@greenspaces4peace that looks like a great site, thanks for the link.

Thanks ❤️

Whilst I don't deny that there are both good & bad people in the Catholic church & that sometimes terrible things have been done, I believe that is true for all faiths & all non faith based groups of people.

When I have been at my lowest, when I have been all alone with nothing to eat, nowhere to go & literally sleeping under a tree in a park, or on a roundabout on a quieter stretch of a busy road just off a motorway with nothing but a sleeping bag, what got me through was my faith & knowing that even when nobody else cared, my God did.
Looking back at how unbelievably naïve I was, it's hard to believe someone wasn't watching over me, because I'm frankly lucky to have survived some of the situations I ended up in.

When I reached out, the only people who accepted me were those of my faith even though I hadn't practiced for some time & they reached back with compassion.
When I was in a position to do so, I became one of the people who was sometimes the one who reached back.

Yes, there are some Catholics who do not live a life completely in line with the teachings of the Catholic church.
It's probably most of them.
I'm certainly not perfect & not everything I have done is text book as it should have been.

I have met many truly devout (but not perfect by any means) Catholics in my life, who do their best to live a life of service as they struggle with being only human.
You generally only find out by accident though as they don't shout about it.
So many quiet acts of kindness happen every day which are never acknowledged.
There is a lot of unacknowledged good done in the community of Catholics around the world.

I have experienced hatred for the crime of being Catholic.
I have been mocked for owning a rosary (by someone who found it by snooping in my stuff), for wearing a crucifix, for feeling uncomfortable with anti Catholic sentiment that is so casually thrown around.
I don't understand why that is supposed to be okay.
I don't meet Catholics who mock other faiths.

I have a deeply engrained respect for life which was instilled in me through my faith.

Underneath all my imperfections as a regular human being, I have a certainty, gifted to me by my faith, that I am not completely alone, that I am not completely unloved & that there is good in me which my faith wants me to allow to shine.

There have been times when I would not have lived to see the morning without the small, but real comfort it brings to me.

I am also not alone in feeling that way.

You can keep your Christian fact for the day and your patronising attitude.

Something I've been wanting to ask for a long time, but didn't know where to post, is if you believe in God/a higher power (as do I), how do we ever explain children suffering/in pain/getting seriously ill/dying??

I don't know if I can ask this here, given the heading but.... I'm genuinely interested to know how can you reconcile the horrors done by the Irish Catholics with a religion of your choosing? I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic School in Primary & Secondary, taught by nuns. With genuine curiosity, how do the scandals of the Magdalene Laundries, the Tuam babies and the child rape by priests which was then covered up by the Pope not affect your practice?

@Trufflepizza Why not actually read the thread, this has been discusses already.

@sentinent That is an interesting question but perhaps best to start a new thread on this board to ask it and make it open to all believers?

@Darkandstormynite I apologise for derailing the thread but statements like the one above just shouldn't go unchallenged because it's this lack of understanding about where the anger comes from that feeds anti-catholic rhetoric.

Anti-Catholic sentiment goes back a lot further than the abuse scandals, it is (sadly) ingrained in some parts of the UK.

I come from Liverpool.

In 1847 there was mass Irish immigration into Liverpool due to the famine in Ireland. In the first 3months of that year 120,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Liverpool. Many were 'passing through' to their ultimate destination the United States. but some stayed and settled in the dock areas. Churches were built and 'soup kitchens' and other schemes set up the deal with poverty.
In 1925, due to lack of employment opportunities in Ireland, there was again an influx of Irish workers into the city who came over to work on the construction of the Mersey Tunnel. This continued until 1934.
I can remember my mother telling me that some lodging houses near the docks (who took in contractors) had a sign up in their windows saying "No Irish". So the prejudice was alive and well in the 1920's.

Why?

It can be explained by studying the history of Ireland, it's conquest by Henry V111 of England, and the Role of William of Orange. William would emerge as an important Protestant figurehead; the Orange Order in is named after him. His victory at the Battle of Boyne on 12th July (this was a battle in 1690 between the forces of the deposed King James II, and those of King William III) is still celebrated by many especially in Liverpool and Northern Ireland.
I won't go into the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and Eire, but I think you get the picture.

There has been 300+ years of anti-Catholic sentiment and it still continues in Northern Ireland (and in some parts of Liverpool).

The abuse scandals in the Catholic church just added fuel to slow-burning fire.

Because there's a difference between the baby and the bathwater?

For me it’s because I believe it had more to do with the socio/economic/and political views vs strictly religious views.

How do you reconcile being British with the horrors done by the British State in Ireland?

I'm a historian so I'm always stunned that people don't understand the connection between Irish history and our Independence and the Catholic church.