I'm currently Catholic and trying to become an ex-Catholic, I've just been facing so many appeals to love and caring from Catholic friends and one priest I know who both treat me really sweetly and claim God's love is best above anything else while also hounding me not to transition (I'm trans). So I'm hoping someone can help me understand--if you left Catholicism, what is your definition of love now? And do you still believe in "love your enemies"? I want to keep believing in things like restorative justice and anti-death penalty but I don't know how to think about it now.

Can someone explain how Catholics make sense of this sacrament. So god will only forgive your mortal sin if you practice this sacrament which is going into a room with another sinner telling him your sins then he decides what your penance should be to be forgiven by god and then he absolves you.

Every faction, every group, every ideology, from obscure Mann Vs Machine cheating debates to entire political systems and economic ideas all have their fair share of nut jobs who will spill blood in the name of their beliefs. And every ideology also have very good people who will give their lives just to save an innocent life. Case in point, everyone has their good and bad people.

What makes Christianity and Catholicism unique in this?

What do you all think of the miracle of Fatima (1917) in regard of the connection between the foretelling of the miracle & the miracle itself? Like Im trying to Figure it out, I dont think there happened a real miracle, I personally think the sun/sky thing Was some weather or meteorological phenomenon. What freaks me out though, is the fact that the three seer children of Fatima were able to foretell the date&time&place of the Event. People gathered in a field & there they witnessed the phenomenon. How did the children do this?? Do you have any counterarguments?

For the excatholics who went on to become another confession: what is the difference between Sightings of Mary/miracles to a large audience (crowds of people!) and the reveal of God at mount Sinai to the Nation of Israel (not the one reveal to Moses but when he talked to the whole nation).

After all I will add this fabulous post on the sister sub (which sadly didnt answer my question)

So I have an extremely specific question - about 7-8 months ago, I was seriously considering returning to Catholicism, and I had a chat with a priest at a local church that, at least pre-COVID, had the reputation of being a progressive church in some ways (they had a Laudato Si committee, yearly mission trips to the US-Mexico border to help migrants...).

The meeting was highly weird, and got weirder as distance from it grew. They had a new priest who apparently knew nothing about the programs above, even after having started over a year ago. After telling him my personal story (to keep it very short: raised Catholic, went to K-8 school run by the Nashville Dominican nuns, as conservative as you could get, bullied severely in grades 7-8 by students and eventually by nuns and was officially "disinvited" by the principal from continuing to the local Catholic high school by the principal. Tried several times to return but every time there was almost a "push" from the Church away from it), he looked me in the eye and said that it sounded like God had sent the bullying and the years of trauma from being shunned at such an important age along with several suicide attempts as a "stumbling block" meant to humble my pride.

Let me repeat that - years of trauma and emotional/spiritual abuse were sent by God to humble the pride of a 12-year-old.

There was some more weird stuff (for example, after commenting on the icon of the Last Supper on his wall, he took it down and showed me the back where his "brother priests" signed it like a yearbook after graduation!), I went back the week after, but that was it, and hightailed it back to the eeeee-vil Episcopal Church which despite outward appearances was in a different galaxy from what I had just seen.

I've read a lot about religion and Christianity, and despite myself sometimes, I'm a believer in the Creeds and have raised my kids to be so as well, sometimes better than I am. I feel like I've heard this "stumbling block" concept in evangelical writings, but I never heard it in Catholicism, at least to my recollection. I have seen a lot of "just-world" stuff, especially in Catholic doctrine classes in middle school where the message communicated was that you generally deserve what you get in life because God is rewarding or punishing you - I'd never heard the stumbling block theology, although a lot of the saint stories that we'd heard incorporated chunks of it (saints who'd begged for years to be admitted to the clergy and refused or abused by superiors and the act of taking that abuse rather than rebelling held up as the highest holiness).

About a month later, I had a horrible intuition that the crazy-eyed priest who I'd sat across a table from could have just as easily have called other things than bullying a "stumbling block" - if spiritual and emotional abuse is a stumbling block sent by God for humility, why not sexual abuse? Disability? Systemic discrimination?

So is abuse a punishment from God on the victim?

(Romans 8:38-39)

This is something I've always wondered about, even when I was still Catholic. Whenever a non-Catholic tried asking me this, I never knew how to respond. Even when I asked my parents as a kid, they'd say something along the lines of "because that's how God wants it." But is there even any proof of that?

Before you give me the quote from the Bible about how a woman's place is in the house and a man's place is at work, let me remind you that that isn't the case anymore. The dogma was changed so that women could work and it wouldn't be a sin. Now we have successful working women who support themselves and remain single their whole lives; sometimes they even dedicate their lives to God. We also have women working and making more than their husbands because their husbands, through no fault of their own, couldn't get a job as high paying as theirs.

Now, why are femininity and masculinity so important? Back in Jesus' time, nobody wore skirts or pants, they all wore tunics. Why can't men wear skirts? Why are some women frowned upon for wearing pants? A human came along and dictated those articles of clothes are for one gender and one gender only. God didn't have anything to do with it. Women have slowly been allowed to wear pants, why is it still frowned upon for men to wear skirts? Why can't men wear makeup or have an interest in "girly" things if they're still physically stronger than women and can still protect them regardless of their interests?

This is something that's always stumped me when we're not changing who men and women inherently are.

As someone who was exposed to various schools of Buddhism growing up, not only does their ignorance and gaslighting puzzle me, more than anything it justifies why countries like Japan were wise to forcefully remove them. Have these people ever put down their pretty looking dogma and taken a good long hard look in the mirror and take a look at those outside their own world? To me their apologists seem like nothing more than internet imperialists who really have no idea who they're dealing with nor do they realize just how foolish they look.

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I have been making videos reading the Catholic Children's Bible with commentary, and I am constantly floored at how unsuitable this material is for children. The Noah story. God killed all the people. The book describes how people took their children and pets to the tops of mountains and died anyway. It talks about how even the birds died because the waters were so high. It is horrific. Each story is pretty f-ed up. I think teaching these stories about how you need to follow the rules or be harshly punished, killed, or damned for eternity is abuse. Prove me wrong.

Edit: See below.

This is more of a question asked in good faith than a desire to debate but for those who grew up Catholic and have now "rebelled", do you believe that you nevertheless benefited from a strict upbringing that gave you boundaries, expectations and enforced consequences for your actions, as well as provided you with some semblance of a moral compass that prevented you from making mistakes that would have hurt you in the long term?

Please bear with me but I would go so far as to say that even those who were abused - as horrific as those experiences were - nevertheless matured into independent, functioning adults, even if it required years of therapy to overcome the trauma of what was done to them (which they nevertheless pursued on their own initiative, pointing to some kind of inner strength that they had since childhood).

I ask because I get the impression that those who grew up in lax environments where nothing was expected from them (either in belief or deed) turned out far worse in adulthood. The foremost example of this that comes to mind is incels, most of whom were raised by absent or indifferent parents, who are incapable of handling the rigors of adulthood. Moreover, they refuse to seek therapy because they're too lazy to do anything for themselves, thanks in large part to their enabling parents.

I'm not suggesting that any of this is an argument for Catholicism; rather, I wonder if anyone else here has come to this realization.

Edit: I've amended my position since first posting this and have hopefully clarified my position further. Please see my comments.

EE: Although I asked this in good faith, I can more clearly see in retrospect how tasteless this post was. Abuse in any form doesn't build character; it only leaves a mess for the victim to clean up.

Say, for example, I don't support giving alcohol to minors. I would like to pass legislation prohibiting this practice in every way, including the Catholic Eucharist. Why is this not ethical as compared to the Catholic stance that same-sex couples should not be allowed to be legally married, nor be allowed to adopt children?

I remember when I was a kid, I knew whole swaths of people who identified as Catholic, went to church periodically (but not necessarily every Sunday), held tolerant views and had an in-the-world ethos. They identified with Catholic culture, a sense of humanitarian compassion and human dignity. In short, Catholicism shaped their world view.

I recently got into a discussion on r/Catholic about the notion of "tolerance," which elicited many unfavorable opinions (one person referred to tolerance as "just an occasional necessity"). This took me aback. I thought this discussion was basically over in the aftermath of Vatican II; a kind of an exorcism of an earlier age of burning stakes, inquisitions and inter-confessional strife.

I understand that due to generational changes and in reaction to the sexual molestation scandals, many people have just left the church, leaving behind the more dedicated devotees. That said, is the kind of cafeteria Catholicism that I knew some 20 years ago now dead?

Is there anything in all of the Catholic Church's teaching that you still agree with? Or would you say you disagree with every single teaching the Church has?

What specific teaching from the Church do you disagree with and why?

Not to disregard people who left for personal/emotional reasons that could be justified (abuse crisis, bad "catholics," etc. but I'm referring to what the Church teaches, and why you disagree. Thanks

In my opinion hell is a matter that is highly refusable by the human psychology and therefore a god who causes people to be there just for not obeying his rules which not always meet the human being moral standards of the societies in the world. However Catholics use arguments and a rethoric that, in my opinion, needs a quite high IQ to be able to refute. They talk about about the free will of human beings of choosing to be there or not because they willingly refuse God. They say that if people refuse to God in the world life, it is coherent/consistent that he refuses people to be with him. Therefore, the idea is that God doesn't send people to hell, but people choose to go there because they refuse the love of God. I also heard the argument that hell is very hurtful because when not choosing God a person wont be in touch with anything good because anything good comes from god and the inmense pain is the total lack of goodness from God in the pleasure-pain spectrum.

I intend to make this thread into a kind of megathread containing arguments of both sides about the truth of Catholicism. The arguments may be summarised and including url to pages when they are more developped. They can include also answers to them. Each arguments can have tags such as (pro), (against), (slightly pro), (slightly against), (hint pro), (hint against) and other you come up at the beginning of the sentence. The answer of the argument can be placed under the paragraph. You can see an example below:

- (against) A carbon test of the shroud of Turin shows it comes from the 13rd century.

---- (reply) There is another study named STURP that showed supernatural facts in the shroud.

------- (contrareply) Walter McCrone and Raymond Rogers, researchers of the project, considered that the religious incomes influenced the research.

In several hours, when I have more spare time I'll continue with this thread adding all the pro and against arguments I have in my mind.

**posted with permission from moderators**

We're looking for women between ages 18-65 who identify as Catholic and have experienced infertility or have used/considered using reproductive technologies to participate in a study examining how Catholics rely on faith to cope with infertility and make decisions about whether and how to treat infertility.

Participants will be asked to participate in a 1-2 hour interview over the phone or video-chat. The interview will involve questions about one's experience of infertility, one's faith practices, and one's opinions on reproductive technologies. Participating in this study is completely voluntary and you are free to stop at any time. We hope to use the results of this research to contribute to scholarly research regarding how faith influences how women cope with infertility and discern treatment for it. Information collected in interviews is confidential and will be made anonymous.

If you would like more information about being in this study, you can contact Emma.mcdonald@bc.edu. If you know someone who may be a good fit for this study, please feel free to forward this email/send this post/announcement to them.

IRB Protocol #: 21.185.01e

Or is it another one? These are the two worst in my opinion.

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I’d like to hear the Catholics try to answer for why they put so much focus on the Mass and abortion, given their relative unimportance. I contend that Catholic teaching on the Mass and the topic of abortion are flat-out wrong and the laity are completely correct to only attend on Christmas & Easter (& potentially even less.) The laity are also completely free to advocate for increased access to abortion and the pro-life view has no viable biblical basis.

The case against Mass:

• Jesus held Mass once in 30 years, and spent a supermajority of his time evangelizing and helping the poor.
• Jesus did not say how often to hold the Mass. There is no reason to think he meant weekly and absolutely no reason to think he meant weekly and on the Holy Days of Obligation.
• The Mass that Jesus asked his followers to emulate was an informal dinner. They did not sing a Gloria or have a sign of peace or anything else, either in the TLM or the Novus Ordo.
• The formula of both the TLM and the Novus Ordo are not dogma and are not dogma by ex cathedra. They are not infallible and may be wrong.

The case against abortion:

• Numbers 5:11-31 instructs a priest to give an abortifacient by default and states that if God wants the baby He will make the abortion fail. It explicitly says to do an abortion and let God consider whether He wants the baby after, not the other way around.
• Jesus never contradicts or clarifies that part of the Old Testament, despite the gospels being full of instances where He clarifies the Law of Moses.
• Jesus states to follow the Law of Moses.
• Jesus was perfect, so He could have mentioned His stance on it and God could have inspired a gospel writer to record it.
• Past Councils did not consider the abortion instructions in Numbers as a reason to exclude it from Church teaching, even though they could have.
• God clearly considers abortion as a separate case of killing, like killing in war. He also lays out when it is acceptable and states He will intervene if it is not, after the abortion drug is taken. Like we have a Just War doctrine, it is far more likely that God prefers a Just Abortion doctrine.
• Church teaching on abortion is not dogma or dogma by ex cathedra. It is not infallible and may be wrong.

I'm breaking this off from a thread on r/excatholic as it isn't the place for debates. I'll post my original comment and a reply from u/CatholicCPA, then reply with my response.

Original comment (from myself)

Some Gospel related contradictions that I have yet to find convincing answers to:

• Did Jesus die on the Passover (claimed by Matthew, Mark and Luke), or on the day before the Passover (claimed by John)?
• Was Thomas part of Jesus's Easter evening appearance (claimed by Luke) or not (claimed by John)?
• Why are the genealogies different in Matthew and Luke? When she invariably brings up Levirate marriage, ask why the fathers are still different. Even if I marry my brother's wife, it wouldn't change the genealogy higher up.
• Ask to go through and reconcile all the Easter morning accounts. John doesn't fit with the others

Other tough topics (some of these do have some typical Catholic replies, some don't)

• Why did God condone slavery in the Old Testament? When she brings up how it's different from American slavery with rules and safeguards, ask why those didn't apply to non-Israelites.

  • Why was the Catholic church so slow to condemn slavery?

• If God is all good, why did he create a world with natural evil in it prior to the fall (CCC 310-311)?

• Is there free will in heaven? Usually, the answer is "yes". If so, ask why free will explains evil. Clearly, we have free will in heaven, but there's no evil there

• How does intercessory prayer work? If God already wills the best for me, then it doesn't matter if others pray for me. If it's best, God will let it happen anyway. If it's not, God won't answer the prayer

• If people hear God's will, why aren't there any stories of God telling a concealed carry holder where and when a shooting is going to take place and prevent it? Are there any credible stories of God telling someone that a friend is about to commit suicide, so they can try to prevent it?

• Why doesn't God just destroy our souls rather than send people to hell? Personally, I'd pick nonexistence over eternal torment if it came to that.

Reply from u/CatholicCPA

You realize John is not a synoptic gospel and this is well-attested, right? Hardly a "contradiction"

The genealogies are different in that one is Marian, one is Josephan.

The Catholic Church condemned slavery before anyone else, with Gregory of Nyssa in the 5th century. Furthermore, in a contemporary American context, the proponents of slavery were not the Church, who was in fact actively against it. It was southern Protestants who were in favor of it.

"Free will" classically understood is "freedom to choose the good", not "freedom to do whatever I want". In Heaven, which is a state of goodness, we're free to choose the good and we do.

Do you understand prayer as such? Sincere question.

Why are you condemning God for someone else using their free action to cause harm? God gave us free will, and the shooter here misconstrues their action as the good. You're getting mad at God for someone (most likely atheist in all honesty) doing a mass shooting and killing people.

You choose to go to hell.