Catholic - Asked my priest for advice but I think I offended him

[cheekycee]

I asked my priest today about a lady I follow on social media who I used to follow and practice witchcraft to her spells etc (I had no idea how frowned upon it was I'd lost my way to god years ago if I ever followed him at all) and I just was intrigued by magic. She then turned to Jesus and said drop all witchcraft because Jesus is real and this is an absolute NO in the bible. I followed her without even questioning and since found God again. I now go to church I pray all the time and repent my sins also. I am no where near witchcraft or even entertain thinking about it and I pray the demonic spirits that may have come to me while dabbling are rebuked in the name of 🙏🏻Jesus🙏🏻.
I asked could this be a pose and she is posing as a catholic and I don't know why I get this feeling. He got quite blunt (not rude at all) but like as soon as o asked about the witch stuff he closed off and said draw back from her pray for her and do you both a favour... I hope I didn't offend him...

I'm so confused because I feel close to God thru this lady and I found god again because of her. Any advice pls?

IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT.

Catholic priests are very short when you just ask them questions out of the blue but once they have you in RCIA class, you will see another side to them, very pleasant men , have you been in that class, baptised and so on

Your recent posting history points at a lot of issues you are dealing with and have had to deal with. Some of these seem to be very serious and stem from childhood. This would suggest why you are so vulnerable and easily led by random social media characters.

As a Catholic myself I would advise you to get counselling urgently and start to unpick your issues including the domestic violence you have also posted about. And I would recommend you leave the religion alone until you have at least started to work through everything that has happened to you.
Religion alone will not help you to deal with all of that. You need the support of medical professionals

Reputable Catholic organizations won't let people go on retreats etc if there are issues there which need to be dealt with by healthcare professionals.
Similarly you shouldn't be converting to a faith if you aren't in a stable and secure place. It can end up just adding to the issues.

Ex-Catholic here - I thought you had to make your first confession as part of being fully ready for your first holy communion? I may have missed something here - are you taking instruction to become a Catholic?

IFYOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT.

this is rude , I can offer you good advice AND not believe god

i can't tag you "whycanineverthinkofone"
But you must refer to manners by your username because you're rude, passive aggressive and seem like a Cold bitter bully in real life. Get a life and I'll pray for you. GBA na

this is a rude and intense response to someone who has taken the time to help you

I don’t think your priest was offended but is probably concerned for your mental wellbeing which sounds fragile ?

there is nothing wrong with witchcraft , paganism practices or magic as it’s just following nature and eco hippy folklore , I was pagan for years at uni and belonged to a lovely coven , absolutely no devil worship whatsoever ! and a very wholesome religious theology, I am now married to a catholic and there is quite a cross over in matriarchal vibe, by that I mean catholics revere Mary and pagans revers mother earth also the bells and smells are very similar , there is no need to be so extreme in your religious feeling , you seem fearful and not comforted by your spiritual journey.

do you have support in real life ? Please surround your self with real life people who can healthily guide you in your spiritual journey and I would respectfully suggest you stay away from social media as you are vulnerable

Get a life and I'll pray for you is my new favourite come back

@cheekycee
I don't think the priest was offended. Like a previous poster wrote, priests get to hear about everything, and are probably not easily offended.

You yourself write that he was blunt but not rude in his response.

He gave you advice according to his faith and his ordination.

I wish you all the best on your spiritual journey!

You are correct of course, but I think OP needs easing in gently.

I doubt you offended him. He probably didn't want to even enter into a discussion with you about witchcraft, for both your sakes.

This woman is not someone you know personally; you have nothing to lose by un-following her on social media, and it would be the prudent thing to do.

I agree. A Priest is more likely to be worried about you than offended by you.
Be honest, were you trying to shock him?

You do know the Catholic Church takes this kind of thing very seriously? There are Priests that perform exorcisms to this day. I don’t know much about it, because it scares me, but you can find info easily enough

I’m sure that you’re not at risk of something so serious, but you don’t know this Priest’s knowledge and background and as I said he’s more likely to be anxious for you than offended by you.

I'd question whether you are close to God or if you are following this woman? I'd follow the advice of your priest, stop following this woman, totally detach from her, and find out who you are and what you believe independently of her. See if your faith stands without her.

Well done Mumsnet - another poster frightened away, and on the 'faith' part of the forum too. Well done!

@whyhere The advice given has been good. No one has been frightened away, they may have chosen to leave because they didn’t like what they heard.

Absolutely. They were very rude to the other poster and then they flounced throwing insults around. They weren't "frightened away".

“You do know the Catholic Church takes this kind of thing very seriously? There are Priests that perform exorcisms to this day. I don’t know much about it, because it scares me, but you can find info easily enough”

I have been Catholic all my life in Ireland (so the majority of people were catholic when I was growing up and even for people who were far from devout it was very much part of every day life) and I have never known priests/ nuns to take witchcraft/ demons/ devil worship etc seriously at all. The very few people I know who have mentioned anything of the sort to a priest, the priest has (wisely) advised them to seek help with their mental health. There are a lot of negative things I could say about catholic priests but one of the positives is that they tend to be very pragmatic and rational in certain regards. The stuff that people see in movies about exorcisms and that is mostly made up for entertainment value. If you bring any of that up with a priest in real life, the usual reaction is that the priest will steer you off the topic to focus on God instead. They don’t teach you anything about demons/ witchcraft or anything, none of that is part of the sacraments and there’s very very little to do with hell or satan either, especially these days.

However, the Catholic Church still teaches to stay away from such things. Priests do exist that are trained in exorcism. I’m not suggesting for one moment that’s what’s needed here - but I am pointing out that the Priest’s reaction may have more behind it than OP realises.

OP seems to have wanted to shock the Priest, and I think it was more likely he was worried about her. Probably from a mental health point of view.

Im also a life long Catholic, raised among Catholics, and I think your post is a bit of an over reaction. You’ve put more in my words than I was saying and kinda rubbished what was a reasonable post.

"OP seems to have wanted to shock the Priest, and I think it was more likely he was worried about her. Probably from a mental health point of view."

It's obvious from her other threads that she has a lot going on and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd picked up on that and wanted to help her by advising her to stay away from social media influencers of this type.

So people of faith are supposed to just suck up appallingly nasty manners? Practice what you preach comes to mind. The OP needs to consider the impact of what they say to others. And if you can't cope with being called on your bad behaviour, don't do it in the first place.

I can't imagine any of the priests I know being offended by that. They've heard and seen it all. I suspect he said that for your own good.

Said it better than I could!

I have a life and don’t need prayers from you o/p. Thank you for the offer though.

I suspect I was correct about the o/p only wanting to hear opinions that fed in to her own ideas. Which is probably why the priest seemed blunt, because o/p wasn’t listening, or it wasn’t the time or place for such an involved discussion.

i am friends with a fairly influential priest. I know him through work, not the church. He is an academic priest working in a university.

we have many conversations. What he has taught me though is everyone should be listened to. Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon, everyone has something valuable we can learn from, even if we only learn we don’t agree. Even paganism and witchcraft, many of their rituals have parallels in Christianity. He welcomes everyone into his church, regardless of their religion or even their belief.

That is how you learn. Not by being insulting and rude to those trying to help.

@AmberElliston the church does have specialists in this area. The priests may not refer on to them every time, but they have someone to go to, should they become concerned about something.

@AmberElliston "The very few people I know who have mentioned anything of the sort to a priest, the priest has (wisely) advised them to seek help with their mental health"

That is correct procedure.
Organic reasons need to be ruled out before assuming anything is demonic.

If you want to know about the 'heavy' stuff, this guy is your man.

Very pleasant men? They belong to and promote one of the most corrupt and abusive organisations in the world. They should be ashamed of themselves and certainly not people to take advice from.

Just because certain individuals have done bad things does not mean that the whole organisation is corrupt.

That's like saying that our Parliament is corrupt because some MPs have 'behaved badly' or that the Medical Profession is evil because of the likes of Harold Shipman.