As a person who received a Catholic School education until college (and would have seriously considered Boston College if it were economical), I’ve come to have a lot of respect for the Jesuit order. I respect their dedication to a liberal arts education and their goal to modernize the church. I see them as on the opposite end of the spectrum of traditional Catholics. I’ve been considering leaving the church for good, but the Jesuits and other progressive Catholics make me wonder whether or not Catholicism itself is inherently harmful. I’d love to hear anyone’s opinion on the matter.

Any time I type in “ex Catholic” into YouTube’s search bar, the results are either Catholics bitching and moaning about ex Catholics or they’re about ex Catholics converting to some other religion. I want an ex Catholic channel that is non religious. I’d also prefer it if they had more left leaning views. Does a channel like that even exist?

I am physically in, mentally out. I am more agnostic in my belief. For note, I met my husband on Catholic Match and wanted to be very traditional, but have deconstructed from that belief over the past 10-15 years. Here is my question...

I am interested in attending as little as possible to remain a "practicing member"-- just enough to get the catholic school discount (IF we decide to send our son to catholic school. That is up for discussion, but if we choose the private school route, that's one of the only options). What do you think the minimum attendance by way of weekly envelope submission in the collection basket would be? 3 times per month?

ETA--the envelopes are empty for the most part, or may have $1 or $2 shoved in if I have it. But they are a necessity for any sort of "Catholic benefit" - be it funerals, tuition discounts, baptisms, etc.

I hope they all loose U.S. citizenship. What a nightmare couple brought together courtesy of CatholicMatch.

I am in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost a year now. We are both very happy and we plan to have a future together. He is not catholic, he is a casual Christian, but I am not catholic or super religious either (my mom doesn't know this information). My mom keeps prying and giving me lectures about saving myself for marriage and abstaining for marriage. I chose to have sex with my boyfriend, and we have a great sex life. Of course, I don't tell my mom this and just tell her I am "avoiding temptation" as she states it. She always brings up this topic and it is getting frustrating. I never go near the subject. She says she believes what I am telling her, that i am not having sex, and I think she is being honest. But I really need her to back off and let me live my life within adult relationship. How do I set this boundary? I really need opinions and thoughts. I don't know what to tell her.

I normally have decent respect for my family members who are extremely devoted to Catholicism. They are so chained to it emotionally, that there is no sense in being contradictory to them openly. I just ignore most of what they say and teach my children to think critically and be skeptical of miracles, etc. Well, one member of my family keeps rehashing her demonic experience. She is in a church after a mission was over. Apparently she was the last person to leave and as she was walking down the stairs she was pushed, her faced rubbed into the glass door. When she turned around no one was there. She tells my kids a demon attacked her. My guess is that being that she is neither athletic nor agile, someone attacked her and quickly snuck away before she could gather herself, which is possible. I do believe her story to a degree, but she would never be convinced there is any possible explanation besides satan being angry that she is doing God's holy fighting against him. I don't even know what to say to my kids about it. I just responded that "sounds scary". It is so awkward. She doesn't normally say crazy things, but this one makes me uncomfortable.

I'm ex-catholic but my extended family is still very much practicing.

When I was practicing, I was asked to be a godparent to my nephew. He is completing his 8th grade confirmation today. I will not be attending (for various reasons- schedule conflicts with my own kids being primary, but also a sense of not wanting to be in church.)

How can I acknowledge this day for him if it turns out it is important to him? I'm not sure if he's doing it for religious sake or because he's doing what his parents tell him to do. Would a card and some money suffice?

(I'm not intending to create drama here, but I do want to see if it would be appropriate for me to give him a small gift even though it isn't my faith anymore.)

I still can’t in my right mind be part of the Catholic Church, and I’m still agnostic, but I realized it isn’t Jesus that I had a problem with, but the Christians who give Christianity a bad name all along. I might get downvoted for this but I had to get this off my chest

Anyone else have to limit the amount of time they spend reading this subreddit? If I keep reading (staying on the subreddit), I become so emotional. Brings back the anger, confusion, depression, and abandonment. I have to stop or I’m wrecked for the rest of the day or several days (due to the topic). Many bad memories are dredged up. (I see a therapist. I have seen one for decades.) Just wondering if anyone else has this problem.

Days where despite not considering yourself a Catholic for a while now, it just sinks in how they took away your childhood, youth and what not? And then you don't know if that makes you more depressed or pissed how it all made you so behind in life? Moments when you want to both cry and smash something 🫠🥲

10 years ago one of the major condemnations I kept hearing about while I was still in my catholic high school was regarding homosexuals and same-sex unions and marriages.

We would get constant excuses and roundabout answers (especially from the book Cathecism of the Catholic Church) about how the Church didnt outright hate homosexuals but they didnt support the lifestyle either and that homosexuals were called to a life of celibacy because anal sex is disordered.

Whenever I hear about religious talks from my old school or other similar institutes its mostly about the boogieman of gender ideology, transgender people and increased secularism. Wonder if they just gave up on attacking homosexuals and what caused it or are they waiting for another opportunity to take down the LG in LGBT?

So I (28F) was born and raised Catholic. About 10 years ago I decided to “leave “the Catholic Church and tried to discover other parts of the Christian religion that weren’t necessarily Catholicism. I’ve gone to nondenominational churches on and off within the past few years still trying to discover my relationship with the church as well as God. I was listening to a podcast here recently, and they started talking about what it means to be agnostic. I always thought agnostic people and atheists were basically, the same and it was very taboo to be either of them. But I did a little bit more research and… I think I’m agnostic? i’ve always struggled with my relationship with the church and God. For some reason, I’ve just always found it hard to believe… The stories… It always felt like the Catholic Church was trying to prove that Jesus Christ is/was real. I’m not saying that’s not true. I have just been having trouble, believing it as well as the idea of praying to Saints or to God for your sins or for help… Some guidance if that makes sense.

I don’t know if any of this is actually making sense. I think I just came here to vent with other ex-Catholics and might be looking for some words of kindness or maybe even clarification from people who might be in my boat or might have been in my boat before. TIA 🫶🏻

I was raised catholic, going to church every week, going through all the sacraments, etc. Now as an adult, pretty much since college and moving out, I do not go to church or anything. My finance was raised Christian ish - went to church a handful of times but that’s it. Together we do not practice any religion. I would say we are agnostic. My family is still strong Catholics.

Now as we plan our wedding we were thinking of having a friend do it, or looking up non religious officiants. However it is very important to my parents that it is as catholic as possible. Well, my finance isn’t going to get baptized, we don’t belong to a church, and we are 100% sure we want to get married outside. My parents need to be ok with it not being in a Catholic Church, but I’m wondering if there is any sort of religious officiant, maybe a general Christian of some sort, that would be open to marrying us, if I learn that would please my parents. We do not really care who marries us, so I’m just trying to find a compromise I could propose. I don’t think a priest can if it isn’t in a church, or if he isn’t baptized/we don’t plan on practicing Catholicism. I do not even know what to search for though in researching this.

Does anyone have similar experience or advice?

Btw they are planning on contributing some of the budget, plus I love them and want to respect them, while also being true to ourselves... I just want to take their feelings into consideration. Thanks in advance for any advice!

PURE EVIL HERE, AND IT'S NOT THE POOR KID THE ONE THAT IS FULL OF IT... THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL IN A NORMAL COUNTRY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FL_l7QJiCU&ab_channel=ApostleKathrynKrick

Hey y'all I wanted to make this update post cause I just want to write out my emotions and to share my experience at the Charis Jesus retreat. It was surprisingly a positive experience of closer that led me to finally come out to my mom that I'm an atheist. Maybe this story will be a nice change of pace to the usual doom and gloom here. My weekend over there was actually pretty nice. Would I go to another retreat? No. Would I recommend it to other young adult catholics? Yeah.

The area was nice, and we were in the middle of the woods with a small lake. The little houses were nice, and the grounds were beautiful. The one thing I absolutely hated as a city girl is all the bugs, which was traumatizing, but thankfully, nothing super terrifying came into the house. They also didn't take our phones, and the signal was OK there.

The people there were actually super nice and very open and accepting. From the get-go, I was honest to them about being an atheist and being forced there. I even wore my most edgy Gothic clothes, but they not only accepted me, but they also engaged with me and had fun with me on camp activities. My favorite part there beside the reflection time (where I just vibe to music) and the bonfire (my very first bonfire & and smores, btw) was the small group talks. It was less about Catholic conversion and more about life, love, and philosophy. As an atheist, I was also able to share my experience and perspective, and no one scorned me for it. It was like a fun college discussion class. I even got the courage to talk to a priest about first-class relics, a topic I was curious about after watching Ask a Mortian.

My least favorite parts of the retreat were all the mass and prayer times. It felt wrong for me to even be in the chapel, and I was pretty bored at mass. I didn't pray, but I still sat, stood, and kneeled out of respect. The most awkward I felt was on Saturday when they were doing the confessions and footwashes, but it didn't feel right for me to go up there, so I sat in my seat board out of my mind.

However, the most emotional thing happened there when my small group leader came up to me during the Saturday mass and asked if I wanted to wash my hands or feet. I'm didn't want to look bad, so I let him wash my hands out of respect. I didn't do the proper prayer, but when he was washing my hands, he prayed to God and apologized for the disappointment, trauma, and rejection I felt with being Catholic. I was surprisingly emotional and thanked him. It was very unexpected, and he didn't have to come up to me and wash my hands. I wasn't expecting to participate in anything. But after that, it felt like a sense of closer with my personal negativity with the Catholic church.

At the end of the retreat, I got to share hugs, Instagrams, and laugh with them. Going to this retreat reminds me that the extreme voices online don't always reflect reality. Yes there is alot of serious flaws and trauma with the catholic church and Christianity as a whole, but you also have to remember the good Christians out there that are open and only have love in their hearts. I wasn't planning on coming out as an atheist to my mom until after I became a fully independent adult but after the retreat, I told her when I got home and she still accepted me and love me. I feel like I can finally be at peace with Christianity and move on.

tl;dr: it was a fun and surprisingly emotional experience of closer with catholicism and Christianity as an atheist. Wouldn't go to another retreat but would recommend this retreat to young adult catholics.

Hey everyone, just coming here to share my story with trad/catholic anxiety. I’ve definitely been in it for less than many people here but I just wanted to get this off my chest and hey, maybe this helps somebody!

So for context I am a 21 year old college student. I came back to the Catholic faith in February of last year. I had become an atheist at 15 years old after becoming paralyzed with fear when I discovered how mortal sin actually works (“masturbation is a sin??”). I was bitter for a few years, but during the pandemic I started to go down the typical Gen Z “intellectual Christian” pipeline (Peterson, Barron, Pagaeu, Pints with Aquinas.. Lewis and Chesterton.. you know the drill). Eventually I felt something shift and I knew I had to go back to church. My confession experience was beautiful, as was receiving communion, praying the rosary, and reading the Bible. Around this time I also began dating an amazing girl (still dating!) who was raised Catholic in Mexico.

Things were great for about 6 months, but I was constantly taking in online content about Catholicism and.. you see where this is going. The first ugly step was talking to my girlfriend about NFP. She (despite being from a traditional Mexican Catholic family) had never heard about this and found it to be an unsettling and bizarre teaching. Add on to this that she already has a lot of anxieties about pregnancy and motherhood and… it was rough. But nonetheless, she stuck through and tried to at least understand the logic of it.

Meanwhile, I became increasingly radicalized and anxious. I began reading the main Catholic sub for hours a day (literally), frantically looking up questions such as whether NFP requires a “just” or “grave” reason. I would spend entire days in mental agony about the debate on what is sexually permissible in marriage. Eventually I shifted from Pints with Aquinas and Bishop Barron to Sensus Fidelium and Father Ripperger. Now the questions were no longer about when NFP is permissible, but whether women wearing pants or public pools were permissible. Now I was wondering whether the Novus Ordo was sinful, whether wives who work are in mortal sin, and whether the “Fewness of the Saved” sermon was literally true. I became so obsessed and anxious that I literally started googling the most “traditional” monasteries in the US and thinking about joining them since clearly that must be the only way to get to heaven. I started to become afraid of my girlfriend hugging me in case I began to get aroused for a second because I was pretty sure some priest in a barely audible video with 15,000 views said it was a mortal sin, even though two solid priests I actually know told me it was fine.

The thing that kept killing me was that slipping up on any single one of these “rules” was a mortal sin. So if Christopher West is wrong about marital sexual ethics, he’s 100% going to hell. If I’m wrong about women wearing pants, every woman I know is damned. If one trad priest has one less crazy mortal sin rule than another, he's probably done for on judgement day. What the hell is the point? Shouldn't we all lock ourselves in our rooms and whip ourselves all day? How can we know what all the mortal sins are? It all began to seem more and more arbitrary, as if everyone, even the most perfect trad, was just taking on the most amount of rules as they could personally handle and moving on with life. Then is any of this even real? I was starting to crack, and the gulf between my anxiety and my actual life was becoming larger.

Two months ago, I snapped. I realized I was one the verge of becoming an insane loner and losing an amazingly supportive (and patient) girlfriend. I am basically back in agnostic land. I no longer care about the rules. I don't know how long I'll be here, or if I'll become orthodox, protestant, or a Sam Harris secular Buddhist (actually.. probably not that last one lol). I plan on pursing marriage with my girlfriend and conducting our lives like basically every Catholic on the planet.

I feel confused, relieved, and bitter. I have no answers or questions, no point I'm trying to make. But I just really needed to put this out there. Hopefully reading this helped somebody. Feel free to DM me if anyone wants to chat for any reason. Have a great day y'all!

Back when I went to Catholic school, one of our religion teachers told a student who was conceived via IVF that she and her sister were going to hell for it. Not that her parents were condemned (which is an equally bad thing to tell a kid imo), and no emphasis on the forgiveness which is what I’d expect to hear. Nope, this 12 year old kid was told she was going to hell for something she had no control over

I was conceived via IVF too and thank goodness I didn’t know about this until I was catching up with a friend recently. At that age I would have been crushed

Sorry if this has been discussed before. We know that Mother Teresa of Calcutta and other saints have documented their sense of loss of faith or feeling “abandoned by God.” Those of us who were “very” Catholic and painfully deconstructing from our former belief system have said or written words and sentiments very much the same as the saints and mystics experiencing that “dark night” though we’d hardly consider ourselves among them. It seems like the more seriously we took the whole thing— theology, deep prayer life with God, the sacraments, the bigger the cavernous “black hole” was left when those religious trappings and authoritative dogma lost their hold on us. So do you think the “dark night” saints realized this is all there is, and despite feeling keenly the loss, just went through the motions of Catholicism and belief in God because of their vows, or time already invested (sunk cost), or couldn’t manage the practical realities of walking away?

If you didn't want a small child eating from a plate of cookies, would you leave said plate of cookies within easy reach and access, tell the kid, "Don't eat any of these cookies!", and then leave, trusting that the small child who doesn't comprehend anything will listen to you? Or would you place the plate of cookies in a secure location where the kid would be unable to get to it?

Adam and Eve were basically children in adult bodies, yet God left the tree right there in the middle of the garden with easy access and no form of security!

Someone on Facebook told me, "This ANALogy is rubbish." I asked, "How so, bucko?" He didn't reply that time, but I blocked the freak anyway.

I'm gonna be a technically true catholic on thursday soon. I'm mostly doing comfirmation because it's hard for me to tell my parents about my identity as agnostic (especially when I haven't came out to them), and I just want to make sure I'm safe. The sponsor I chose was one of the teachers for my comfirmation course, that mostly taught about the history of the church and the saints in it. He's chill, and doesn't have that undertone of hate that most catholics have.

I know that comfirmation is about comfiriming my faith, but having someone there, not knowing that I've already decided that the church isn't for me feels bad. I know that he probably won't know this, but still.

Now I'm just imanging about how the priest made it look like athiests don't feel empathy or feel guilty, and are brainwashing, but that's just not true. I mean, I'm here.