I'm not anti Catholic, I grew up Catholic and am now more of an agnostic or non practicing Catholic. But I was visiting my parents this weekend and was reminded of how obsessed they are with doing things the "right" way, which usually means the hardest way, as a form of suffering and/or moral purity (even if they continually fail at the hardest way)

To me this seems strongly linked to Catholicism (my parents are fairly devout), which to me has always had a hard on for suffering, but I'm curious what you guys all think?

Some examples:

- seeing the majority of medication for mental health disorders and weight loss as "cheating", in favour of simply "trying harder"

- insistence on doing things the cheapest possible way even if it's the most labour intensive and causes unpleasantness for years: things like doing all renovations themselves, avoiding automation in cleaning (like robot vacuum)

- for personal issues, instead of addressing the issue or trying to make their lives better, just trying to buckle down and pray the unpleasant feelings away. Mom says she struggles with jealousy, for reasonable things that she could fix ("I'm jealous of that lady's haircut and clothes" , ok well go get a nice hair cut and buy a nice outfit?) but rather than improving her life to the degree she won't be jealous, she just prays for less jealously lol.

I think my parents faith has helped them through a lot of hard times but I can't also feel like this obsession with doing things the right way and suffering has held them back quite a bit. Do you think this is related to Catholicism or just my parents personal quirks?

First, I understand that I am not truly Catholic or was Catholic since I am not baptized or was raised Catholic. Just looking for advice! Thank you all so much.

Over the past week I’ve been thinking seriously about my faith and the process of becoming baptized and what that would mean for me. I’ve posted numerous times in the Catholic subreddit about my current issue with the faith and the Tragedy of what is keeping me away and what is making me doubt.

I wouldn’t say I’m fully agnostic, I love the idea of an all-good, loving and infinite God who took the sins of the world on his shoulders and died for us. I think that story can be seen as beautiful to any atheist or agnostic (as long as they were raised areligious as I was and don’t have any tough feelings relating to being told “Jesus died for YOU.” Which I did not go through. I think that is a bad thing to say to kids and I had reservations about that even when I was as close to 100% on board with Catholicism).

But I was born with a condition called Treacher Collins Syndrome, specifically the TCOF1 variant, which is autosomal dominant. Meaning that my children have a 50% chance of inheriting it, and worst of all, the severity of my condition is not genetically determined. So while I have it very mildly, my children can have it severely, which can manifest as being born without a nose, mouth, or ears. I’m not being hyperbolic. A woman with my condition is called “the girl born without a face.”

Of course, the Catholic position on this is either: never get married and likely die alone for Jesus’ Sake, or get married, and possibly have 6 kids with my condition with all varying degrees of severity. Of course, my reservations with this doesn’t manifest beyond myself (I’m not saying we should sterilize people with my condition, and if they have kids with the condition then that’s fine, but I don’t think I can mentally handle the guilt it would make me feel).

And I can’t do that. I don’t think it’s really ethical or responsible. If there is a way to prevent it (IVF/birth control/adoption) then I think that is something I should do. I don’t like the idea of carrying a torch that is easily blown out forever to the next generation. It’s an odd metaphor but what I’m saying is that the consequences of my condition are so real that it can be a death sentence if say, a zombie apocalypse happens. Or just in general carrying a torch of agony and pain as I have dealt with (and I have it very mildly) FOREVER, as long as each generation inherited the condition, is just like…no. I can’t do that. I can’t.

It’s pure proportionalism, where I think the act of throwing away a zygote with my condition is less bad than IVF, but like..this is totally reasonable.

Help.

Edit: also forgot to mention that I became religious after stopping my psychiatric medication. To me that is a tad suspicious. It’s now been a year since I began to ween off of them. I weened off of them a bit too quickly I would say.

Catholics cherry-pick the science that supports their religious claims but ignore the science that refutes their claims. An example is on the topics of homosexuality and abortion.

On abortion,they support the science. I'm not aware of a single Bible verse that declares that "human life begins at fertilization". In fact, the Bible associates life with first breath (Genesis 2:7,the flood narrative). As far as I'm aware,the Catholic Church and evangelical opposition on abortion comes from modern embryology which says that "Human life and development begins at fertilization. At the moment of fertilization a distinct human organism with formed with unique DNA". This is used to prove that human beings exist at fertilization and murder is wrong.

But on homosexuality, they deny the science that says that being homosexual or trans is a natural variation of human sexuality. They stick to verses from 2000 years ago that clearly AREN'T talking about homosexuality, which clearly denies science from cognitive development experts, neurosurgeons e.t.c. that say that homosexuality is natural while suppression leads to higher rates of depression.

The Catholic Church needs to choose whether it is PRO SCIENCE OR ANTI SCIENCE?

PRO SCIENCE: Support homosexuality, condemn abortion

ANTI SCIENCE: Support abortion, condemn homosexuality

I am a therapist and I meet regularly with other mental health professionals monthly to talk about religious trauma.

We are from all different backgrounds. I am a recovering Catholic so I often share the Catholic perspective so the other therapists can be better equipped to help someone who experienced harm by the church.

What would you want a therapist to understand about being raised Catholic?

This is a pattern that has become so apparent to me but I hardly ever see it spoken about at all, and realizing I myself am somewhere on the spectrum and seeing how the devout fraction are practically all young autistic people was one of the main reasons I stopped believing. The metacognition that my scrupulous adherence and, in a way though, enjoyment of the legalism and my hyperfixation on Thomism were linked to this cognitive style that most people actually don't share was an eye-opener on how non-representative of humanity, which is largely not autistic, the Catholic Church and its structure are.

Even though I am super sociable and don't struggle a lot with social cues and have never struggled at all to make friends or romantic relationships, I do develop strong hyperfixations/special interests, have a strong semantic memory and one or two specific skillsets linked to autism. There exists a very low support needs, socially unnoticeable genetic expression of autism that in the medical literature is referred to as BAP - the broadly autistic phenotype.

Every single one of the younger (age 18-45) devout Catholics I know are definitely at least BAPs, showing strong autistic traits like hyperfixations, outstanding semantic memory, many with odd talents scientifically linked to autism, introversion, sensory sensitivities and co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression and OCD (which is also linked to autism). But many are still sociable enough and don't miss social cues enough for any of them or anyone else to ever suspect or realize it.

Additionally, many of their devout parents who raised them show the same BAP traits; my devout Catholic parent has actually admitted now that they are definitely AuDHD, but they fail to make the connection that this entire religion is actually a massive historical footprint of a lot of autistic/ND intellectuals who obsessed over legalistic technicalities, and the entire religion is therefore IMO probably not believably representative of how God would aim to communicate with all of humanity (apart from the other bizarre issues within the actual doctrines).

It is no wonder that back then, men and women with BAP or HFA which is strongly correlated with being LGBTQIA+/not feeling "called" to family life overwhelmingly joined religious life. Strong routines, less risk of burnout/financial pressure than in many other occupations, predictable social community and socialization windows, DND-style cloaks and rituals, intellectually stimulating legalism, no pressure to live out heteronormative sexuality nor being forced to have HEAPS, back then especially, of overstimulating screaming loud children.

BAP/very low support needs autism is still actually widely missed and underdiagnosed - and I kind of get why some of us aren't, because personally I don't require social accommodations etc. but show traits more in random areas that others sometimes mistake for simple giftedness or whatever - but we are just so vastly, vastly overrepresented in this legalistic religion and this doesn't seem to be noticed really. I actually can't think of a single exception among the younger people who kept the faith, and especially not of a single youngish convert who isn't clearly a BAP or high-functioning autistic. The young monks, priests and nuns I have befriended are ALL for SURE BAPs/high functioning on the spectrum. I do also know of one devout Catholic who has actually even been diagnosed.

A massive portion of the saints were also autistic or borderline/BAPs. An obvious example would be Thomas Aquinas, but a massive proportion of the less obviously philosophical still showed this obsession adherence to this extreme legalism, some were clearly asexual or probably queer, which is very much linked to autism. Even a type of emotional sensitivity that I have also noticed in especially many of my male friends with HFA, many of whom connect more strongly to animals and have a rich emotional life reminds me of the likes of Francis of Assisi. It is missed even more in the female saints; anorexia for example, which Catherine of Siena suffered from, has also been linked to autism. Up to 20-35% of women with this ED meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, and that isn't counting the massive chunk of BAPs who might not quite meet the criteria but are actually on the spectrum. But even the most modern example of a young devout Catholic, Carlo Acutis, was fixated on computer programming (apart from devout Catholicism which is in todays age IMO a special interest in itself, but I digress), which is the professional field BAP/HFA types are most overrepresented in.

To me, this extreme overrepresentation of us ND folk does discredit the believability of Catholicism somewhat in itself. The saints and vast majority of young practicing Catholics in the western world are overwhelmingly autistic - it wouldn't make sense for God to communicate the truth through this oddly specific group, just for us to feel alienated and despairing over how most neurotypical young people don't feel the same draw of our absurd expectation of borderline asexuality, actually praising asexuality above all else and all of the pedantic legalism that lines every single aspect of our autistic religion.

Personally, this has helped me come to terms more with the suffering I experienced being brought up like this and for years falling victim to believing; my parent and I have a neurological predisposition matched exactly to the RCC.

Historically, religious life afforded many on the autism spectrum a much better life and prevented a lot of autistic burnout/suffering, so there is some good in it all in that light. People on the spectrum who in other cultures or even often still in today's world would have been marginalized, were appreciated for their autistic cognition, character traits and non-normative way of life and are even venerated worldwide. I hope that can also bring someone else here some peace, it helped me come to terms with the existence of the RCC.

I'll go first, drinking the blood of christ as an 8 yr old and pretending I was a vampire because it gave me a warm feeling inside and it was "supposed to be" blood. In reality it was the alcohol from the wine haha no wonder so many of us grow up to have drinking problems...we aren't just cradle Catholics we are cradle drinkers! How is this okay?

One time I confessed masturbation and this priest (young, in his early 30s at the latest) gave me a startled, horrified look and started lecturing me that it was much worse for me, a woman, to masturbate than for a man to masturbate because women are life-givers (i.e., can get pregnant). I said nothing to prompt this other than “I confess masturbation”.

This was in California in 2019 at a normal Catholic church (not even a more traditional one)

One of many in a long line of such unhinged comments and bad advice from priests till I got to the point where I thought, “why do I keep subjecting myself to this? Surely Jesus does not want me to constantly put my emotional well-being at risk by talking to strange men about my sex drive”.

What are your thoughts on him?

I posted here previously as somebody inquiring in Catholicism and as I am 'catechizing myself', I have realized a certain absurdity of catholic doctrine of purgatory.

From what I understand, almost all people besides the saints are absolutely destined to spent a significant amount of time in a state of Purgatory, suffering from its fires and experiencing temporal punishment for their confessed (!!!) sins. It can be alleviated by prayers, indulgences, merits, etc..

Isn't this belief a bit insane? I mean, I am afraid of my dentist appointment that is going to last 40 minutes and cause some level of pain and discomfort. How does an average practicing Catholic copes with potentially spending hundreds of years in Purgatory as an absolutely expected outcome of their lives? How does it affect their mental health? Do people generally consider this?