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What is catholic guilt


What is Catholic Guilt? (with picture)

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The term “Catholic guilt” is generally used to describe the feelings of remorse or conflict in people who are or were raised Catholic. Sometimes this guilt is associated with specific church teachings, since when people feel that they have violated their faith’s laws they tend to feel guilty about it. The phrase also has a broader meaning, though. Many Catholic teachings emphasize the inherent sinfulness of all people, which can lead to a certain degree of self-loathing even in the absence of some obvious transgression. Guilt in this sense is usually related to inherent imperfections and daily failings that cause a person to feel that he or she is isolated from God and unworthy of reconciliation. Some scholars have linked this sort of religious-based guilt to obsessive compulsive disorder, though the results are far from conclusive.

Broad Ideas About Sinfulness

Many churches and faith-based organizations teach that sin and transgressions have separated people from the love of God or other deity, but the Catholic Church has a reputation for emphasizing this separation perhaps more vigorously than others. This is often particularly true in Catholic schools where young children are taught that they are unworthy of God’s love and are able to receive that love only through divine grace. People who grow up in these sorts of environments and with these sorts of teachings often develop into adults who feel guilty almost for existing. Many of these people remain deeply religious, but a sense of shame and sinfulness is often a big part of how they see themselves and is often the lens through which they approach their faith.

Relationship to Specific Church Teachings

Catholic guilt can also occur when a person who was raised in the faith engages in some type of behavior that the Church has declared to be wrong or sinful. Issues and practices associated with sexuality are some of the most common, and may be the cause of guilt for either a practicing Catholic or a lapsed one. Examples of prohibited practices include abortion, premarital sex, extramarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality, and the use of any type of birth control. Other sources of guilt may include divorce, not going to church, and interfaith marriage.

Guilt Generally

People who were raised in the Catholic faith are typically given very clear messages about which types of behavior are acceptable and which are not. This is not to say that people raised in a different faith do not feel guilty about the kinds of choices they make about how they will behave. Still, somehow the phrase Catholic guilt has made its way into popular vernacular. "Jewish guilt" is another common phrase.

To attach the term "Catholic" to feeling guilty about one's choices could be considered a stereotype, and unfair to people of the Catholic faith. The truth is, such guilt can affect people of various groups, Catholic or otherwise. When people do something that they feel is wrong, they will feel remorse after the fact. These feelings are generally normal, given the circumstances. People who lack the ability to feel remorse after doing something they have been taught is wrong may have some type of psychological problem that is more serious than guilt.

Potential Intersection With OCD

Some scholars have suggested that there may be a link between obsessive-compulsive behavior and guilt rooted in a religious faith like Catholicism. A number of studies have looked at the guilt felt by Catholic parishioners and leaders, often asking participants to make note of times when they experienced worry or recurring negative mental images. In most cases, the people who reported having a stronger faith were more bothered by these kinds of symptoms. This connection has led some to conclude that the intensive teachings and standards set by the Church may be related to incidences of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is a formally recognized psychological condition, though this conclusion is not widely held.

It is unlikely that Catholic guilt is really obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in disguise, at least not for most people. In some cases people who at risk of developing OCD may also be people who are naturally attracted to a life spent in service to others through religion. Those with a strong religious faith are also more likely to experience guilt, whether Catholic or otherwise, if they do something they have been taught is sinful.

Genetics also plays a role in whether a person develops OCD. It makes sense that when a person with the predisposition for OCD is raised in a strict manner, where the rules about what is right and what is wrong are very clearly emphasized, they would be more likely to experience guilt if they made choices that did not reflect what was considered acceptable according to their religious faith.

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Catholic Guilt Is Complicated - Lithium Magazine

  • Life
  • January 20, 2021
  • 5 minute read
  • Madeleine Burgess

I’ve only occasionally believed in God and I wouldn’t consider myself a religious person. Despite this, I’ve been baptized, had Communion, and been confirmed—meaning I’m a certified Catholic. A cousin of mine once called us “holiday Catholics,” while my mother prefers the term “culturally Catholic.” My cousin is right, though: I go to church twice a year, on Easter and Christmas, to make my grandmother happy. I didn’t attend a Catholic school and on my off days I forget the words to the Hail Mary. 

It turns out that a fun part of our Catholic culture is a significant amount of guilt. No one in my immediate family is a practicing Catholic, and yet you won’t see a single one of us eating meat on Good Friday.

Catholic guilt is essentially an excess of healthy guilt. Being morally scrupulous isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the Catholics (including those loosely associated with the church, like myself) take it one step further. The Catholic brand of guilt stems from the church’s black-and-white view of morality. We whittle down the ideas of Heaven and Hell to good and bad. This gross oversimplification of human behavior doesn’t allow for shades of gray. 

Even further, Catholic guilt means that when you’re not performing actions that are deemed “good” by the Church, you feel as though you’re a bad person. Unfortunately, the teachings of Catholicism are centuries old and don’t represent how anyone actually lives today. The problem also lies in not being able to feel neutral about your own choices. They’re either good or sinful, and so things as normal as resting yield feelings of guilt, because as illogical as it is, you feel as though your time technically could have been more well-spent.

Catholic guilt is an experience that connects me to my other vaguely Catholic friends and entertains those who cannot fathom our feelings of guilt. It’s been represented in theater, literature, and film. Orla Gartland even wrote a song about Catholic guilt.

During Christmastime, Catholic guilt intensifies. Family members label each other bad or good depending on the food they’ve eaten, how much they’ve exercised, and whether or not they went to Mass. It can be exhausting, even if you try to abstain from the conversation.

There are some universally applicable instances of Catholic guilt that anyone even remotely associated with the church will understand. This article went so far as to list 21 signs of suffering from Catholic guilt. From the generic pressure to get married in a church to feeling uncomfortable when someone yells “Jesus Christ” (despite doing it yourself), this writer hit some scarily specific points that made me question whether my vegetarianism was really for the environment or just a deep-rooted symptom of religious guilt.

To try and explain how Catholic guilt works on a day-to-day basis, here are some ways it manifests in my life.

  1.   Feeling defensive of Catholics

Hear me out. The Catholic church as an institution is irreparably messed up—I make no excuses there—but I can’t stand when people conflate the church with its followers. I’ve met a ton of shitty Catholics, ones who use their faith to justify hate, but I’m not talking about them. What grinds my gears is non-Catholic people making sweeping judgments about 1.2 billion people. I know this feeling is probably a hangover from the age-old Protestant v. Catholic dispute, but it’s made its mark. Catholics, feel free to criticize the church all you like. But if your whole take on Catholicism means you taint victims and perpetrators with the same brush, kindly shut up.

  1.   Anything remotely to do with sex

This one may be a combination of the patriarchy and the church, since they tend to work in tandem. I challenge you to find a Catholic who could masturbate without feeling excessive amounts of guilt afterward in their teenage years. Watching movies with sex scenes around my parents makes me deeply uncomfortable even now. I could go on, but I think you get the point. The church has made sex so taboo that a 21st-century, tertiary-educated, bisexual feminist is still suffering today.

  1.   Aversion to criticism

Again, this feeling is not unique to Catholics—many of us with anxiety experience it to a debilitating extent. But there is something different about Catholics in my experience, and that is an inability to separate themselves from the judgments people make about them. It could be grades, or even a joke about a minor mistake, but everything becomes personal. Escaping judgment is impossible, and learning to respond without anger would benefit many Catholics. 

  1.   An inability to spend money on myself

I’ve been earning my own money since high school, but I still find it unreasonably difficult to buy things that I like. “Because I want it and can afford it” apparently isn’t a good enough reason to buy myself a new shirt, even though I’m wearing clothes I’ve had since I was 15. If I’m not going to be in dire straits without making a purchase, I simply won’t do it, it makes me feel selfish. Catholicism asks you to put the needs of others before your own, and while that may be a noble pursuit, when taken to extremes it’s only going to be detrimental to your mental health.

  1.   Emotional repression

This is the big one. If I had to summarize Catholic guilt at its core, I would say it comes down to emotional repression. Families simply don’t talk about their feelings. Any display of emotion is treated as undesirable and weak. It makes forming close friendships and relationships with your family quite difficult. It took me until I was 16 to be properly comfortable with hugs. Communicating feelings to romantic partners can feel like a chore.

In reality, there’s a genuinely dark side to Catholic guilt. An inability to communicate feelings can lead to serious miscommunications and unresolved resentment. In my experience, Catholic guilt makes expressing yourself overwhelmingly difficult; it impacts all of your relationships, whether they’re platonic, romantic, sexual, or familial.

Catholic guilt is generationally entrenched, too. It’s a cycle of thinking that has to be purposefully broken. To rid yourself of Catholic guilt means speaking up against your family. It means making choices to look after your mental health, even when no one around you thinks it’s a priority. It’s about breaking the martyr mindset and actively believing that you can and should do things for yourself. 

While you critically evaluate your thoughts, you may find yourself drifting from your family. It can be difficult to realize you have different priorities than those you love. Just remember that establishing healthier patterns is always the right thing to do. Catch yourself dividing behavior into binary categories of good and bad. Your devout or merely cultural connection to a faith should never be allowed to stifle your emotions.

Relationships with religion are always hard to navigate, particularly when your family is involved. If you need a sign to start the work, here it is: Catholic guilt serves no one, so for the love of God, let that shit go.

 

By Madeleine Burgess

Related Topics
  • Catholic
  • church
  • Madeleine Burgess
  • religion
  • WORSHIP
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Catholic guilt - a feeling of remorse or internal conflict?

The term Catholic guilt is commonly used to describe feelings of repentance or conflict in people who are or were raised Catholic. Sometimes this guilt is linked to certain church teachings, because when people realize that they have transgressed the laws of their faith, they tend to feel guilty. However, this phrase has a wider meaning.

Many Catholic teachings emphasize the inherent sinfulness of all human beings, leading to a degree of self-prejudice even in the absence of any obvious wrongdoing. Guilt in this sense is usually associated with inborn imperfections and daily mistakes that cause a person to feel that he or she is isolated from God and does not deserve reconciliation. Some scholars have linked this kind of religious guilt to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), although their conclusions are far from conclusive.

This is interesting : this world can be kind!

Broad conceptions of human sinfulness

Many churches and religious organizations teach that sin and transgression separate people from the love of God or another deity, but the Catholic Church has a reputation for emphasizing this separation, perhaps more enterprisingly than others. This is especially true in Catholic schools, where young children are taught that they are unworthy of God's love and can only receive that love through divine grace.

People who have been formed in such an environment and with such teachings often grow up into adults who feel almost guilty for simply living. Many of them remain deeply religious, but feelings of shame and lack of spirituality often make up a large part of how they see themselves and are often the lens through which they approach their faith.

Attitude towards specific church teachings

Catholic guilt can also occur when a person raised in the faith does something that the Church has declared abnormal or sinful. The complexities and customs associated with eroticism and physiological needs are among the most common and can be blamed on both the practicing Catholic and the apostate. It can be not only different kinds of deviations, but also such phenomena as divorce, non-attendance of church and interfaith marriage.

People raised in the Catholic faith tend to get very clear ideas about what types of behavior are acceptable and what are not. This is not to say that people raised in a different faith do not feel guilty about the choices they make about their behavior. Meanwhile, the phrase "catholic guilt" has somehow come into common use. Jewish guilt is another common phrase.

Attaching the term "Catholic" to feeling guilty about one's choice can be considered a template and bias against people of the Catholic faith. The truth is that this sense of guilt can affect people of various groups, whether Catholic or not. When people do something they think is wrong, they will feel remorse after the fact. These feelings are usually normal, given the circumstances. People who lack the ability to feel remorse after they have done something wrong, as they were taught, may have some kind of psycho-emotional problem more serious than guilt.

Potential overlap with OKR

Some researchers suggest that there may be a link between obsessive-compulsive behavior and guilt rooted in a religious belief such as Catholicism. A number of studies have examined the guilt felt by Catholic parishioners and leaders.

Participants were often asked to note times when they experienced agitation or repetitive unwanted thought patterns. Generally, people who reported stronger faith were more agitated by similar symptoms. This association has led to the conclusion that the intense teachings and standards set by the church may be associated with cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is an officially recognized mental condition, although this conclusion has not been widely accepted.

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It's unlikely that Catholic guilt is actually obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in disguise, at least not for most people. Sometimes people at risk of developing OCD can also be people who are naturally attracted to a life dedicated to serving others through religion. Those with a strong religious faith are also more likely to experience guilt (whether Catholic or not) if they do something they consider unworthy.

Genetics also play a role in whether a person develops OCD. It has been argued that when a person with a predisposition to OCD is brought up in a strict manner, where the rules of what is right and what is wrong are very clearly emphasized, they are more likely to feel guilty if they make choices that do not correspond to ideas. He will preach what was considered acceptable according to the religious faith.

ProCatholic.ru - Question - answer. About communion under two kinds

Hello! Please tell me why the laity in the Catholic Church receive communion without wine, although the Savior at the Last Supper clearly said that it is necessary to partake of wine and bread?
Sincerely, Yu.A.

Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ recalls and actualizes the gesture of Jesus at the Last Supper before his death, when the Lord together with His disciples performed the Jewish rite of the Paschal blessing, which provided for the joint tasting of the blessed bread and wine, endowing this ritual with a new sacramental meaning of the communion of the body and blood. Thus, the most complete form of Holy Communion is communion under the “two types”, bread and wine, which happens in all the rites of various Christian churches. The Catholic Church also recommends the use of both types for both priests and the faithful on especially solemn occasions, especially in small communities where this is easier to do. In some monastic communities and church movements, this practice of Eucharistic communion has already become the norm.

However, it is true that for many centuries in the Catholic Church only priests could receive communion under the two forms, while all other believers received communion only under the form of bread. A similar decision goes back to the Council of Trent, held in the middle of the 16th century, when a new solemn definition was given to the Eucharistic cult, due to catechetical, pastoral, dogmatic reasons, as well as the fight against Protestant heresy. The Roman Catechism adopted by the Council of Triden explains this decision as follows:
“With regard to the Eucharistic rite, ecclesiastical law forbids, without the special permission of the Church, the faithful, except for sacrificial priests, to partake of the Eucharist under two kinds. As the Council of Trent explains,
although Christ at the Last Supper established and gave to the apostles this revered Sacrament under the guise of bread and wine, this establishment did not have the purpose of obliging all the faithful to receive the sacrament under the two kinds. Moreover, the Redeemer, speaking of this sacrament, most often mentions one kind: “He who eats this bread will live forever. The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). For many and very weighty reasons, the Church not only decided to accept, but also to approve by her authority the norm of communion under one kind of bread. First of all, it was necessary to take special care to ensure that the blood of the Lord did not fall on the ground, and this is difficult to avoid when you give it to a large mass of people. Secondly, since the Eucharist must always be ready for the sick, there was a danger that the wine could turn sour if stored for a long time. Thirdly, many people cannot stand not only the taste, but even the smell of wine; therefore the Church had to establish communion under the mere appearance of bread, in order to avoid that what was given for the salvation of the soul would destroy the body; fourthly, in many countries there is not enough wine, and its transportation over long, heavy roads requires great expenses; Finally, and most importantly, it was necessary to eradicate the heresy of those who claimed that Jesus Christ does not appear in all His fullness in one form, and that bread contains a body without blood, and wine contains blood without a body. In order for the truth of the Catholic faith to become obvious to everyone, Communion under one kind of bread was introduced. Other grounds have been cited by those who have studied this question, the abbots, if they consider it necessary, may refer to them.
We should note that the "many and very good reasons" for the Tridentine prohibition are practically irrelevant today, and therefore it is better to always practice communion under two kinds; however, the theological basis, according to which Christ is received in His fullness and integrity under one type of bread, and partly practical considerations that facilitate communion under one type of large groups of believers, have not lost their strength.

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