What is your experience of being a Catholic?

@reasoning logic,

I was Catholic from birth until my early 20’s.

It was a source of great comfort at times…it was a trial at times.

At some point I decided the entire of the religious question was suspect…and traded my beliefs in for what I sometimes call “Agnosticism.”

I do not know the true nature of REALITY…and there might be a GOD involved. I pretty much live my life as though (either) there is no GOD…or that if there is, the GOD does not particularly care how I or any other humans conduct our lives.

It is interesting (as I have mentioned several times in the past) that two of my favorite memories in life have my previous Catholicism as a base…namely the time I served Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican…and the time I participated in a general audience with Pius XII.

But the important part is: Catholicism was a source of great comfort at times…and was a trial at other times.

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@Setanta,

I don't really admire any religious group but I have found some of them to be interesting.

I can only guess that one nun's experience was not as common as others, "kinda like the way baptists have Terry Jones

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@reasoning logic,

This is why you need education in a formal setting. Running around youtube and then coming here for answers, and expecting the people here to waste their time watching some dull-witted, boring video that you found interesting is not how one acquires an education. In a formal setting, you can at least raise your and and get an answer to your questions at the time they occur to you--although in your case is suspect the answer would usually be "we've already covered that." More important, subject matter in a formal educational setting is organized so that one can see correlations or the lack of them, and it is coherently presented which just doesn't happen when you wander around youtube. Of course, there's big down side--you'd have to pay attention, you'd have to read actual books, and you'd be expected to demonstrate that you'd learned something and were able to relate it coherently later on. That might not work too well for you.

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@Setanta,

Good luck to him, I say.

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@reasoning logic,

Actually, I don't understand the question.
Experience with what? With other religions or beliefs? With (Catholic) religion in my (daily) life?

But whatever it is: religion is a very personal thing (and that's why I've never told the state at any census what religious belief I have).

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

I don't really admire any religious group but I have found some of them to be interesting.

I can only guess that one nun's experience was not as common as others, "kinda like the way baptists have Terry Jones

So, in reality, you really don't want to talk about people's experience with being catholic, but about this one nun.

You keep coming back to this nun, to the exclusion of all else.

Why didn't you just name this thread "Let's talk about this particular nun"?

Question to Frank.....what did you find to be a comfort in the church? Can you describe? I'm really curious. I've known, and known some really fine people who currently feel the same way.

I work with a woman who is looking forward to entering a convent, just waiting for a lot of things I won't go into here to get settled. She's about 60ish, been married, has a son. She is without a doubt one of the finest, most compassionate, beautiful person I've had the privilege of knowing.

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@chai2,

Quote:

Question to Frank.....what did you find to be a comfort in the church? Can you describe? I'm really curious. I've known, and known some really fine people who currently feel the same way.

Good question, Chai…and one I have been asked before (probably here in A2K).

I guess the best way to answer it is:

When I was a Catholic and “believed in God”…I always had someone to talk to about any problems I had. The God was, in that condition, always available to me. I was convinced the God was listening to me and my problems; not judging me; and offering help in getting my problems resolved.

At some point, I came to think of that as a form of mysticism. I came to the conclusion that was just talking to myself (not to a GOD) and that I WAS always available to me; that I WAS actually listening to me; that I WAS NOT unduly judging myself; and that I WAS willing (and able) to solve (deal with) my own problems. That change caused me to suspect that I WAS THE CAUSE OF MOST OF MY PROBLEMS…and that I had to be central to “solving” them.

Insofar as Catholicism helped me get to that point…I still feel a great sense of gratitude toward it.

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@Setanta,

I asked What is your experience of being a Catholic?

Then I said I don't really admire any religious group but I have found some of them to be interesting.

I can only guess that one nun's experience was not as common as others, "kinda like the way baptists have Terry Jones

Quote:

This is why you need education in a formal setting. Running around youtube and then coming here for answers, and expecting the people here to waste their time watching some dull-witted, boring video that you found interesting is not how one acquires an education.

The greatest invention may have been the wheel at one time but we have the Internet today.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

But the important part is: Catholicism was a source of great comfort at times…and was a trial at other times.

So you dumped the trial bit in one sweet, easy breath, and, if the theologians are correct, as they always are, the comfort went with it.

Your posts are a form of self-assurance that you made the right choice but your keen interest in the matter suggests you are not absolutely sure. You have no evidence that you made the right choice and you have no evidence that you didn't. So you're agnostic on the matter.

You haven't got the nerve to assert that there is no God. At the strip show you don't know whether to express your carnality or to control it as Mr Obarmy is reported to have done on a stag night in a pub in England when he attended the wedding of a relation long before he made the splash.

My experience of such types of things, taking them all together, was that one might predict that one will live long enough to get to confession and clean the slate. I was certain to have the chance because a few years earlier I had performed the ritual of 7 consecutive Friday communions in Lent which guarantees getting to confession before passing, obviously, into Heaven as befits someone with a clean slate.

My being particularly healthy is probably the reason I allowed the darknesses of my soul to build up immoderately over considerable periods of time and when I did go to confession I knew the priest had heard it all uncountable numbers of times, and was likely reading the racing form, so it was okay to mumble as it was with the 3 Our Fathers and Three Hail Marys, which was the usual punishment.

The priests were not on the look out for youths like me. They were in favour of impure deeds perpetrated on the young ladies of the parish because they could look forward to an endless series of churchings, baptisms, weddings and funerals as a result of those.

I do believe you have completely missed the point.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Quote:

So, in reality, you really don't want to talk about people's experience with being catholic, but about this one nun.

Maybe I should have said that I am not more fond of one religious group than another?

I did find her experience to be tragic and I am curious about how much of this type of behavior has been reported or is known.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

spendius wrote:

Quote:
But the important part is: Catholicism was a source of great comfort at times…and was a trial at other times.

So you dumped the trial bit in one sweet, easy breath, and, if the theologians are correct, as they always are, the comfort went with it.

The comfort is still here with me. Wish I could share it with you...but I guess drinking has to suffice for you.

Quote:
Your posts are a form of self-assurance that you made the right choice but your keen interest in the matter suggests you are not absolutely sure. You have no evidence that you made the right choice and you have no evidence that you didn't. So you're agnostic on the matter.

Try writing that in coherent form...and I may respond.

Quote:
You haven't got the nerve to assert that there is no God.

I am honest enough to know that I do not know if there is a God.

Quote:
At the strip show you don't know whether to express your carnality or to control it as Mr Obarmy is reported to have done on a stag night in a pub in England when he attended the wedding of a relation long before he made the splash.

Because you go to strip shows does not mean that we all do. I do not.

Quote:
My experience of such types of things, taking them all together, was that one might predict that one will live long enough to get to confession and clean the slate. I was certain to have the chance because a few years earlier I had performed the ritual of 7 consecutive Friday communions in Lent which guarantees getting to confession before passing, obviously, into Heaven as befits someone with a clean slate.

What on Earth are you babbling about...and how can you go this long without mentioning Jane Austen?

Quote:
My being particularly healthy is probably the reason I allowed the darknesses of my soul to build up immoderately over considerable periods of time and when I did go to confession I knew the priest had heard it all uncountable numbers of times, and was likely reading the racing form, so it was okay to mumble as it was with the 3 Our Fathers and Three Hail Marys, which was the usual punishment.

Whatever!

Quote:
The priests were not on the look out for youths like me. They were in favour of impure deeds perpetrated on the young ladies of the parish because they could look forward to an endless series of churchings, baptisms, weddings and funerals as a result of those.

Yeah...whatever you were going on about.

Quote:
I do believe you have completely missed the point.

After all that incoherent rambling on your part...you are focused on whether or not I got the point???

Go home, sleep it off...post tomorrow and maybe you will make some sense.

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@Frank Apisa,

Thanks Frank, very clear answer.

So, looking up the term mysticism, it would seem you switched from dualistic to non-dualistic? No/yes?

Looking back, all those words, thoughts being sent out....while I didn't have the capacity to think this way at the time, it seemed I was being told to direct them to some specific point/being "out there", albeit this being was supposed to encompass everything.

I'm the center of everything, as are you, anyone/everyone else, and everything else, together and individually, each atom of the universe. We're all the center and the periphery all at once. Either that or we're nothing, or something in between. Doesn't matter either/any way.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Thanks Frank, very clear answer.

Thank you.

Quote:

So, looking up the term mysticism, it would seem you switched from dualistic to non-dualistic? No/yes?

No. I have no idea if the world is dualistic or non-dualistic.

Quote:

Looking back, all those words, thoughts being sent out....while I didn't have the capacity to think this way at the time, it seemed I was being told to direct them to some specific point/being "out there", albeit this being was supposed to encompass everything.

I'm the center of everything, as are you, anyone/everyone else, and everything else, together and individually, each atom of the universe. We're all the center and the periphery all at once. Either that or we're nothing, or something in between. Doesn't matter either/any way.

Sorry, Chai...but you lost me here. I do not understand what you are trying to communicate.

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
So, in reality, you really don't want to talk about people's experience with being catholic, but about this one nun.

Maybe I should have said that I am not more fond of one religious group than another?

I did find her experience to be tragic and I am curious about how much of this type of behavior has been reported or is known.

What's that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Fact is, you don't want to know about anyone's experience, beyond if it resembled this person who belonged to a religious order, which does not represent the vast number of people who say they follow, or used to follow this religion.

This morning, I clicked on that video again, and went straight to the end, at about the 50 minute mark, where she was talking about being tied to a wall with food/water being put beyond her reach, and about the mother superior putting her fingers in the nostrils and over the mouths of newborn babies, and priest kicking pregnant women in the stomach.

Why not just start a thread asking about people in general whosay they've been treated this way? That's what you really want to know about it seems.

I think you'd find that a lot more people saying that has happened to them in the general population, somewhere in your town or in your neighborhood, than seeking out a religious order.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Quote:

Fact is, you don't want to know about anyone's experience, beyond if it resembled this person who belonged to a religious order, which does not represent the vast number of people who say they follow, or used to follow this religion.

Lets try to keep the facts straight, Here is the OP again

Quote:

As the title reads "What is your experience of being a Catholic?

I can only guess that there are many different experiences. What I would like to hear are the good and bad experiences of being Catholic.

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@reasoning logic,

My bad experiences were only during my childhood/early youth: the Evangelical classmates could stay at home or do something interesting on Sunday mornings, while I had to go to church.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
Fact is, you don't want to know about anyone's experience, beyond if it resembled this person who belonged to a religious order, which does not represent the vast number of people who say they follow, or used to follow this religion.

Lets try to keep the facts straight, Here is the OP again

Quote:
As the title reads "What is your experience of being a Catholic?

I can only guess that there are many different experiences. What I would like to hear are the good and bad experiences of being Catholic.

You're right, let's keep the facts straight.

You've shown no interest so far in what anyone has said has been their experience. Only in so far as you're facinated with this nun, and keep coming back to her.

I've expressed my experience, Frank has expressed his. Walter has said....well...something.

Why aren't you commenting on any of that?

1 Reply

@chai2,

Quote:

I'm the center of everything, as are you, anyone/everyone else, and everything else, together and individually, each atom of the universe. We're all the center and the periphery all at once. Either that or we're nothing, or something in between. Doesn't matter either/any way.

It does matter chai. People in that mode couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery never mind this world in which you live.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Sorry, Chai...but you lost me here. I do not understand what you are trying to communicate.

I do. It's reading Jane Austen that does it.

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@chai2,

Quote:

I've expressed my experience, Frank has expressed his. Walter has said....well...something.

Why aren't you commenting on any of that?

I guess that your experiences were not as shocking and I prefer to listen to what you and others have to say more than sharing my view.

Thank you for opening up and sharing your experience. Your experience was different than mine but you seemed to handle it the way I did.

1 Reply

What is your experience of being a Catholic?

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