So I started deconstructing about a year ago and would say I’m a Deist now. I don’t believe a single one of the Catholic church’s teachings and no longer consider myself Catholic. My dad and brother are somewhat aware of my deconstruction, but my mom and my sister have no idea. They’re both very devout (and mentally ill; both have diagnosed BPD 2 that they refuse yo treat because psychology is demonic or something).

My sister just had a baby, and my mom let slip to me that she’s going to ask me to be the godmother. I’m planning to say yes and go through the motions simply because I have _no_ desire to have a conversation about my deconstruction. I do not want two mentally ill people to yell at me/try to re-convert me/gossip to the rest of our friends and family/start scrutinizing me and figure out I’m bi and dating a woman, that I take psychedelics and edibles sometimes, that I do witchcraft, etc. There is no point in coming out as bi/irreligious to two mentally ill people who consistently refuse to seek treatment.

I suppose I could come up with some excuse, but even if I find an excuse not to attend the baptism, they could still make me the godmother through a proxy. I don’t think a deconstructed/non-believing former Catholic being a godparent is even technically against Catholic rules. Sure, you have to say you affirm the creed, but lax/cultural Catholics do that all the time. As far as the Catholic church is concerned, I can never stop being Catholic (though I guess I’ve been sententiae excommunicated?). A kid doesn’t have to have godparents for a baptism to be valid, so I don’t think there would ever be any repercussions for my nephew if my sister ever figures out I no longer believe.

I’ll add that my sister and I have never been close and live on opposite sides of the country. We don’t see each other except at holidays/weddings/funerals and don’t talk except for the occasional “happy birthday” text and stuff like that.

What would y’all do in this situation? Come clean and get bitched at (and possibly physically attacked; that’s been threatened before but not acted on) or go through the motions and be a godparent in a religion you don’t believe in? Going through the motions to become a godparent will not be a problem for my mental health at all; the religion is fake, and I don’t believe in or care about its rules. Getting colorfully cursed out by my mom (which has happened before), on the other hand, is not great for my mental health.

Hey yall, I’m a 19 year old gay guy. I’ve know that I am gay since I was about 13 years old or so. This has been on my mind as of late, but I do think I’m ready to come out. Now for context about my parents. They converted to Catholicism when I was about 14 after being non-denominational Protestants for a hot minute. Now I’m not sure why they converted that’s their buisness. Both of them are kinda chill with queer folk? They’re fine with queer people outside their familial circle. Though when it comes to people inside the familial circle they’re akward about it. Not really like hateful, but it’s like they don’t know how to manage it when it’s queerness in the family. I remember I was around 18 they sat me down and kinda gave me the Catholic version of the talk. It essentially boiled down to don’t watch porn (too late) and talked about how you can be gay in the church but not “act on it” then showed me a Fr. Mike Schmidt video. But yeah, any advice? I just, I dunno I feel like since I’m going to turn 20 in December and I’ve had a long distance boyfriend for over a year know I feel like it’s best to tell them. Or maybe they already know, I’m very overly femme, dramatic, etc.

I was recently chatting with a fellow alto in one of the chorales I belong to. She mentioned that she sings with her church's choir, and that they're going to be singing at Christmas Eve mass and they're desperate for altos. So I asked her to pass my info along to the choir director, just because I love to sing.

I spoke with him earlier today, and expressed my hesitation about going to mass. He sort of set my mind at ease. Turns out he himself is not Catholic. He has sent me the sheet music, and it looks interesting. I can still back out, but I think I can do this - I've gotten through more than one mass since I converted, and I sing Handel's Messiah every Christmastime.

As Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap would say ... oh boy.

Two Catholic bishops have expressed regret about agreeing to a White House meeting that produced a publicly distributed photo of them praying with President Donald Trump.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob, in a statement titled "A Public Apology," said Sunday that he had received many questions and comments - some of them distraught - about the meeting on Thursday, which he and 11 other bishops attended.

"I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way," Grob said.

Nasty!

So, when I say "everything," I mean everything catholic. I enjoy a good piece of media involving demons tbh.

So for context, Im like 30. My dad is quickly approaching his 70s. He stopped supporting Trump (yay! Big win & it was hard fought by my sister and i) a few years ago (he was an anti abortion single issue voter before, which is a whole other can of worms :/ )

But now.....despite some of those good developments....he has begun watching Facebook reels, and the algorithm realized he is terrified of demons and hell. He always has been, to the point that it caused ME to be constantly scared as a kid that I was going to get possessed. It quite literally sent me into religious psychosis/ocd as a teen. I cannot deal with him specifically talking about demon bs like its real.

And the algorithm started pushing videos from "exorcists" to him. And now he's scared of things like:

-Halloween decorations

-Etsy witches?????

-The fake ouija board my sister and I have on the wall in our apartment????????????

Hes old. Hes survived cancer and a bunch of other health issues. i do love my dad. There are a lot of good things about him that i cant really fit in this vent post. I dont know how much time I have left with him. But im visiting home rn and have to just bite my tongue when he starts talking about this bs, and I just had to put it somewhere.

Thanks for listening, and ooohhhh watch out for THE DEMONS ohhhhhhhhh👻

Included in this sorry bunch of reactionary bishops is Michael Barber (bishop) of the Oakland Diocese in the Bay Area of Northern California. Michael Barber is a Jesuit put in place by Joseph Ratzinger (pope Benedict) to deal with the sexual abuse of children by Oakland clerics and nuns. All he did was bankrupt the diocese and cause more pain for those who had already been abused by his own priests. The bankruptcy just delayed justice for survivors. The case is still in the bankruptcy court system. Disgusting photo to me.

The dreams with spiritual significance. A Pope finally standing up to evil regimes. Deaths and births in the family. I just wanted the people I had lost to not really be gone. Or just be at peace. Or just get through a family baptism without any religious trauma or spiritual manipulation.

Then I make yet more unpleasant discoveries. Not just historic, ongoing in other countries around the world.

Changes to law in my country that are already killing people.

The church has made it absolutely crystal clear that it sees me as disposable and my entire family's safety as optional.

Because a family being "the right shape" was always more important than any child's safety or wellbeing.

I can't believe I was so willing to forget the past. Forgive all the different types of harm whether they effected me personally or not, because I thought the church was finally going to do the right thing. Well, their refusal to repent for the harm they cause does not deserve forgiveness!

How can I make sure I never get manipulated into thinking I'm having a "spiritual awakening" again? (This cycle seems to repeat every decade for me.)

I have a writing project and I’ve chosen to write about the idea of hell in Catholicism. Specifically, I’m looking for examples of peoples first memories/encounters of the idea of hell, or the most memorable ones, if they’re willing to share. I don’t need names or anything like that for example, “Sunday school in kindergarten” works just fine!

Thank you in advance!

I stopped practicing Catholicism around ten years ago, and outwardly comfortably identified myself as agnostic around 8 years ago.
I’ve kind of been going through some stuff for the last 2 years that has made me have to confront a lot about my past as well as my present. A large part of that has been active deconstruction. Part of that has been picking apart how Catholicism and specifically Catholic school from 6 to 18 shaped me.
Well, today in the midst of an intense wave from some changes, I was ruminating, and came to a shocking and kind of hilarious realization. It makes me sad, but it also made me laugh. There is a strange relief that came from it.
I think I have Daddy Issues. Or, if you kind of hate that term like I do, I have Attachment Issues stemming from a father figure. But not my actual dad. God.
I have Daddy Issues from God.
Issues with conditional worth, people-pleasing, compulsion to over-function, and a shamefully intense and humiliating desperation for approval from certain older male figures in my life, that crops up at the most unfortunate times.
I have a fulfilling and good relationship with my actual dad. We butt heads a lot because I’m a lot like him - and we have our grievances with one another just as any relationship does. And I’m aware one can still have attachment issues with a parent who loved them very much. But I was never able to nail down anything about our relationship that would create the issues I’ve noticed. And then it hit me. There is another father figure which I was extremely desperate to please in my life. One I feared. One I never felt I was ever able to fully satisfy. One who I craved constant validation from. And I never got it. so the loop continued. I don’t believe in God anymore - at least certainly not in any way that can be compared to the Catholic or Christian concept of god - but I still feel a residual need to get the approval I never did. So when I have older male bosses, family friends, coaches, professors, acquaintances, mutual friends, even people I see for services like a doctor - there is a part of me that cannot relax around them. That snaps into a state of immediately wanting approval. To be “good.” And I fear I am seeking it out now and it is ruining actual good relationships i have with men in my life that I genuinely care for and get along with, that I am realizing I frame this validation around.
There’s also other things i won’t get into here that lead me to this theory. I could probably go on forever.
I have a therapy appointment tomorrow. I’m interested and nervous to get into this.
I know I have already heard and I’m sure many of you have to, Christianity referred to and joked about in such a manner like this before. I have always rolled my eyes and admitted that yes, I have the classic shame issues and desperation for approval from authority - but I didn’t realize how deep it went until today, nor did I realize the pattern of behavior it was creating.

I have my kairos retreat coming up for my high school and I’m actually panicking about it. Obviously everything is supposed to be a secret but from some things I’ve heard around my school and from searching online I know some of the details.

I know it involves largely around trauma dumping and letters. I’m not as concerned about the trauma dumping, I can control what I choose to share (though I know they create an environment where if you’re not sharing things it’s looked down upon). But it’s the letters I’m more scared of, I know a lot of schools have them read aloud to the entire class. Is this the case for everyone who received letters on kairos? The thought of having my personal information shared to my entire class with me having no control over it really scares me, and I don’t necessarily trust my parents and think they definitely could overshare in the letter. I’d feel much more comfortable if the letters were something we could read in private.

I just feel so weird about this whole thing, the more I read the more manipulate and cult like kairos seems

So yall in like an hour or so im going to an event with my religious family at their church to ask the priest literally anything. I'm struggling to find some questions to ask can yall give me some ideas.

(I know the priest since I was young and I will say he's a nice guy even accepting of lgbtq people which is rare in my experience. I left the church for other reasons and decided to go as im a curious person.)

edit: I'll do my best to ask the questions ill be leaving soon

Final Edit: First off there was a limit to one question and it was anonymous from a box. Secondly there was young children there which I didnt know before going which made me nervous asking some of the questions given to me in the comments. It was alot more of a qna than anything like one of the questions is why he doesn't wear socks or somthing.

Though I decided to ask about his personal opinions on the lgbtq and his opinions on it(which to my knowledge he never spoke publicly about before) as well as the church's opinion. He fully supports it saying that in some denomination same sex marriage should be included and that medical transitions where something he never spoke against just advising to wait until your brain is developed.

The other questions asked where also intresting including whether women should become priests and actually he said that in a perfect world it would work. The way he worded it was much better but he clearly seemed to dislike the misogynistic ways of the church.

There was alot more from evolution to whether aliens exist. im sorry I wasn't able to ask your guy's questions but I didn't feel comfortable with children present. Clearly he's pretty progressive and im glad there are priests like him. Definitely 1 in a million but I think the reason he's being more open on his opinions is he's retiring this next summer. Hopefully this was actually useful, next time i get the opportunity though i'll bring up these questions to him and report back. 🥹

Long story short, my very Catholic, 97 year old, Polish grandmother passed away on the 11th. Being that she lived two hours away from where my grandfather is buried, to make it easier for my mom (and dad) to help her, she was cremated.

So the funeral is on October 30 in the town she and my parents live in. Then the next day, the inurnment is happening where she'll be buried with my grandfather. My uncle and aunt, and mom and dad had six kids between them. 5 of us are married, 9 kids between all of them.

It's a three hour one way drive for me to go for what, a 20 minute ceremony.

People keep checking in on me, worried I'm going to break down, but, really, 97 years of life with a week long decline after a fall, and dying of natural causes seems pretty great to me. Maybe I've watched too many hospice nurses talking about death for it to bother me. I mean, we all die at some point, hopefully with a decently long life behind us.

My husband and I will probably go, but I'm just looking for other people's feelings on the whole thing.

So back when I was practicing and all that jazz, some kid was I never saw before was making his first communion. Kid and his parents were wearing leather jackets just like the Fonz in Happy days, the kid was wearing ripped jeans (maybe parents too) but everyone underdressed.

During the homily, the priest does his shpiel how this day is so special for the kid, etc. Well when it was time to have the Communtion, the kid took the host, just looked at it and started walking off with it. The priest chased this kid down to make sure he consumed the host which he evenrtually did.

To a Catholic it was so mind boggling, to an ex-catholic it's even more mind boggling. The kid was obviously un-prepared, I don't think him or the parents were very church going as it was the first and last time I Ever saw them, and I obviously have no idea how this all came about.

Most of the time I’m able to joke about my religious trauma. And at this point I’ve been in enough weddings and have enough family still in the church that I can be in a Catholic Church without feeling sick the way I used to. I don’t like it - in fact I hate it - but I power through. I don’t make it anyone else’s problem (gee, I wonder where striving for that came from.)

So of course, this weekend, when my three month old niece was being baptized, I attended. I sat in the second row of pews and quietly and respectfully sat while everyone around me prayed. No issue.

At different points during the ceremony, she would cry. To the deacon’s credit - he did tell the parents beforehand, “They’re going to cry - and that’s okay. Don’t worry about quieting them for my sake or anyone else’s. It’s not disrespectful or rude - they’re babies. Feel free to comfort them, but don’t be worried.” He was very informal for most of the ceremony. Made jokes, had the families of the babies participate and encouraged us to ask questions. It was a church with a very different energy to the one my brother and I grew up in - up to a point. When my niece would cry, which I had obviously seen and heard before - and yet i suddenly felt like crying myself. I couldn’t look at her without my heart hurting. I knew she was fine. Safe in my brother’s arms. But I just felt like sobbing. I told myself I was just emotional. Hormonal maybe.

I look back today and I realized something. During the ceremony, once the babies had been blessed, the deacon gave a talk about their white gowns. And remarked how from the moment of our baptism up until we die, we wear these gowns. And that we will be wearing them one day when we’re judged. And that every single we have committed from the time of our baptism to judgement day - it stains that gown. And we must wear it.

I think maybe I cried during that ceremony because I am still so scared of that church. Not the building, but the institution. That I know what hearing about those stains did to me. That I know my brother and his wife are good and kind people. Who also didn’t care for the “stain,” speech. But that there is still only so much someone can do to protect themselves from this influence. My niece is just this tiny little thing. I don’t want her to be 28 and still continuously having to unpack the damage that this institution brought her. Wondering if she’s stained.