Gender and Catholicism

[humbleseeker]

The comments on that thread were particularly disturbing as they mocked people who experienced trauma

Please provide a link to that thread. I assume you have it if you are citing it in your paper.

 

[Mary21]

I’m concerned primarily with Catholicism in practice. I’m trying to gain an understanding of the opinions of everyday Catholics rather than of recognized “biblical scholars” and clergy. I find that the internet provides an interesting platform from which to access the voices of a community. Relying on academic texts is certainly the appropriate way to approach lofty concepts for intellectual discussion. For example, I’ve done a lot of writing on Virginia Woolf and I would never do research on her work on a public forum. Here, however, I’m looking for the perspectives of the people who represent the layman’s view on Catholicism. It wasn’t advanced scholars who educated me in the faith, it was a youth minister who made jokes about nuns shooting Muslims, a Catholic school principal who said my difficulty in math explained the low numbers of women in engineering, and it was a bible study leader who told my best friend he had committed witchcraft by readng Harry Potter. Children like the one I was do not interact with the minds that thoughtfully wrote the Catechism, they interact with adults who operate on opinions and misinformation.

I’m glad my professors agree that there is value in learning about the world beyond academia.

 

[Carmelite1983]

Sounds like Catholicism has left a really bad taste in your mouth. Sorry about all the garbage you’ve gone through. Even I would agree that those people you dealt with sounded like jerks who have NO idea what the Church should be teaching.
Please ask your questions and let us clear anything up!

 

[guanophore]

Do you have your school and the Catholic Apostolate Catholic Answers ethical approval to use material from this site?

Catholic Answers policy is clear that posters should expect anything they submit to live in perpetuity on the internet. Anything on the internet if fair game.

If the research project does not require approval of a human subjects review committee, then the school may not have any formal process that is applied on this type of research project with regard to ethics.

That means, if the instructor allows it, it will be permitted.

 

[guanophore]

I found this site when I was looking for Catholic reactions to the idea of “recovering” Catholics.

What exactly is a “recovering Catholic”?

The comments on that thread were particularly disturbing as they mocked people who experienced trauma, often as children, in the Catholic Church.

Some people have been traumatized by Catholics and have experienced trauma, but the vast majority of people who identify as "recovering Catholics are not among them.

Some went so far as to say that these people were simply ignorant of the church’s teachings.

In fact this may be quite valid. Most people that feel traumatized in some way by their Catholic exposure are very poorly catechized, and suffer because they are ignorant of what the Church actually teaches. I would supplement this by saying that, instead of valid teachings, they were exposed to a corrupted version of the faith.

These people were abused by an entity that was supposed to make their lives better, not shatter them.

There are people who have been shattered - the present sex abuse crisis is testimony to that fact. However, they were not abused by an “entity”. They were abused by wolves in sheeps clothing - persons claiming to be Catholic who were doing the work of Satan on the innocent. These people exist outside the Catholic Church as well as inside.

No complicated apologetics can justify that.

Are you under the impression that abuse should be justified?

Those comments probably won’t be flagged, but they were very indicative.

Everyone here is entitled to their opinion, so long as they follow the forum rules. Some people have an opinion that is just wrong, but they can still post it so long as they don’t violate.

However, perhaps you would be so kind as to provide a link, and if you have not flagged those who are violating the forum rules, one of us can do it.

I’m concerned primarily with Catholicism in practice.

This is an interesting subject for research. It is a fact that the practices of Catholics are sometimes very divergent from the teaching of the Church. I think it might be important for you to discriminate between individuals that don’t live the faith and the “entity” that you seem to want to blame.

 

[guanophore]

I’m trying to gain an understanding of the opinions of everyday Catholics rather than of recognized “biblical scholars” and clergy.

What difference do you perceive there to be? Why is it important to make a distinction?

I find that the internet provides an interesting platform from which to access the voices of a community.

Most definitely. However, one must consider one’s source. This kind of research does not meet the criteria for empirical study.

Relying on academic texts is certainly the appropriate way to approach lofty concepts for intellectual discussion.

In that case, it is curious that you don’t seem to be interested in knowing what the Church teaches, but are willing for your research to be dictated by those persons who potentially depart from it.

It wasn’t advanced scholars who educated me in the faith, it was a youth minister who made jokes about nuns shooting Muslims, a Catholic school principal who said my difficulty in math explained the low numbers of women in engineering, and it was a bible study leader who told my best friend he had committed witchcraft by readng Harry Potter.

That is too bad. Did you ever consider educating yourself about what the Catholic Church actually teaches?

Children like the one I was do not interact with the minds that thoughtfully wrote the Catechism, they interact with adults who operate on opinions and misinformation.

Perhaps you could put a stop to that by becoming one of the people who does thoughtfully read the catechism?

I’m glad my professors agree that there is value in learning about the world beyond academia.

The study of human behavior is a proper subject for academia.

 

[mVitus]

I find that the internet provides an interesting platform from which to access the voices of a community.

One thing I want to point out is that while it may seem intuitive that this forum represents your average Catholic, in practice it doesn’t. Some topics come up so often that slme people will tire of posting in them with the same arguments. Or thry’ve participated before and didn’t enjoy dealing with more extreme opinions and therefore don’t repeat the experience. Forums can distort one’s view if taken as the only source.

To give some examples:

1. Communion in the hand vs the tongue is one “popular” recurring topic on CAF. Those threads tend to attract some people who say it’s wrong. Or when the discussion is more amicable, there’s usually a much hire proportion of CAF members who receive on the tongue than you’d see at your average parish, speaking from my own personal experience. And this topic that seems big on the Catholic mind if you only read CAF, is a non-issue for your average Catholic “on-the-street” as it were.
2. To give an example of even a thread here not representing the forum, let’s take a thread in philosophy on evolution as an example. If you were to read that thread, you might come to the conclusion CAF is split 50-50 on whether or not evolution is true given the posters in that thread. But at the same time I remember a poll on this forum that showed people who thought evolution was false were a definite minority (want to say 10%) on the forum. And ot would be logical to convlude a lot of people just didn’t want to bother with the evolution thread due to the nature of the discussion.

If you really want a more accurate assessment on the average Catholic’s views, it would be better to do it in person. And then when you discuss things in your paper, there also won’t be the easy retort of “Well how do you know BobbyBoy_95 is actually Catholic?”

 

[Carmelite1983]

I’m concerned primarily with Catholicism in practice. I’m trying to gain an understanding of the opinions of everyday Catholics rather than of recognized “biblical scholars” and clergy.

Sent you a private message
I’ll gladly help with your paper

 

[PennyinCanada]

I’m arguing, in part, that there is no way to engage with Catholicism on a basic human level.

So, Mother Teresa of Calcuta and her sisters did not engage people on a basic human level?
Are you looking at the persons who are living a heroic, virtuous life of faith as a measure of that faith? or are you going to measure Catholicism by those who fall short?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I planned to use these comments as evidence in my paper, but I’d like to see how people respond to this first.

With all due respect, I’m not really interested in giving you comments to use “as evidence in your paper”. I have no idea what you’d use them as “evidence” of - for all I know you could espouse some theory that totally isn’t what I said or what I meant in context. You also sound like you’ve already formed a negative hypothesis about Catholicism and you’re just going to use whatever anybody says to support that. I’m not interested, and I further think the thread topic is inappropriate for this forum. We’re not guinea pigs for your research work.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Ever done research at an academic level? If intending to use any material including surveys, social media etc, the researcher needs to put his or her plan before the ethics committee of their academic institution.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

This as well

 

[ZMystiCat]

Do you not consider this as a Prime source? Does that mean the Twitter feed of President Trump is not considered a primary source?

I agree that internet fora, being anonymous, do have some limitations, but it is also true that many authentic expressions can be found here.

That depends on what you’re looking for. Are you looking for what a specific person said about a situation? Twitter and forums are OK sources for that. Do you want to know what a religion actually teaches? You absolutely should not go to Twitter or a forum. You should seek out what verifiable experts say on the matter. For Catholicism, you can’t get better than the catechism, though you may want to read what some known experts say about it, because getting all the catechism teaches about a subject can be hard if it isn’t one of the main topics.

The comments on that thread were particularly disturbing as they mocked people who experienced trauma, often as children, in the Catholic Church. Some went so far as to say that these people were simply ignorant of the church’s teachings.

 

[guanophore]

Ever done research at an academic level? If intending to use any material including surveys, social media etc, the researcher needs to put his or her plan before the ethics committee of their academic institution.

Yes, but I didn’t get the feeling it is is that kind of research project. Perhaps educational institutions vary.

It does seem odd to glean certain postings from an internet forum as a source of data…

 

[guanophore]

That depends on what you’re looking for.

It sounds like the search is on for random Catholics who don’t know their faith well.

I suspect there is some confirmation bias at work, trying to “prove” that one’s own life experiences of bad behavior on the part of Catholics is the norm.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Ethics committees are ubiquitous in academia in the western world.

And when we sign up for CAF, we do not agree to be research subjects. Henceforth, if the researcher has no approval, they can be sued.

 

[jeeter]

I’ve been reading some of the threads on this website and I’ve been struck by the barely concealed hatred and blatant arrogance of some commenters on topics like non-catholic religions and LGBT people.

Can’t say I’ve seen true hatred toward others here, granted I’m still pretty new here to this forum. As far as arrogance, could you define that? If I believe that Catholicism is the one true faith, should I not act as such? Some would consider that arrogant.

I’m arguing, in part, that there is no way to engage with Catholicism on a basic human level.

Someone mentioned Mother Theresa. There’s quite a few other examples of Catholics engaging others on a basic human level. Volunteers in soup kitchens, shelters, doctors, etc etc.

 

[guanophore]

Ethics committees are ubiquitous in academia in the western world.

I will agree to disagree with you about whether using posts from public form has go through an ethics committee.

And when we sign up for CAF, we do not agree to be research subjects. Henceforth, if the researcher has no approval, they can be sued.

The source of the data is the posts. I agree with you about signing up to be a research subject, but CAF is clear “Do not post anything on this web site that you do not want to remain online permanently”.

The posts are potentially perpetually available sources of data. I agree, anything can be sued for anything, but one must have “standing” for a successful lawsuit. It would be difficult to sue someone who is anonymous over a post that one has agreed to make available to the public in perpetuity.

The OP is looking for data on the attitudes of average Catholics. I think an argument can be made that the contents of CAF does not represent the average Catholic, but if the instructor accepts an internet forum as an appropriate source, there it is!

 

[PennyinCanada]

You say that men are superior because they can be priests and women cannot.
You have made a huge assumption and it’s wrong.
When Mother Teresa takes care of the dieing, is she being superior to them?
When a mother or father gets up in the middle of the night because of a sick child, are they being superior to them?

When a man becomes a priest, he is choosing a life of SERVICE. A priest is caring for the people in his parish. He is a servant to them.
He is, if I can put it this way, holding down the fort while the people of the parish go out into the world. We return every week to be fed the Bread of Life to return to the world. When someone is born, someone dies, someone is sick, we call him to be present in these big moments of our lives. He is a servant.

You know what the priest kind of looks like to me? Like a stay at home mom. She is the one who puts on the bandages, makes sure there’s food in the fridge, and at a certain time of day has a hot meal waiting. And the family comes home from their day, they sit together, they share a meal, they visit. And mom is there at 2 am when someone is hot with a fever. In the morning everyone leaves to go out into the world to take care of what is theirs to take care of.

 

[PennyinCanada]

I’ve been reading some of the threads on this website and I’ve been struck by the barely concealed hatred and blatant arrogance of some commenters on topics like non-catholic religions and LGBT people.

As soon as you use the word ‘Catholics’, you’re in trouble. The reason is that you are 1) identifying a group of people, giving them a name and 2) saying they are haters and arrogant. Now what has happened is that you have now become the bigot by this action. You have identified a group and put your negative spin onto them. YOU are not treating them as individual persons with their own ideas, you’ve lumped them into a group. You’re in trouble.

When Christ came into this world, he broke the satanic mechanism of making a group of ‘them’ and creating an ‘us’. This is the mechanism of wars and fighting through the centuries. Christ said to ‘love your enemy and do go to those who hate you’. Now THAT is worthy of spending time writing a paper. This is how the light of Christ came into the world that was dark with sin. Your current paper is only going to establish you deeper in the darkness that Christ came to beam light into. Pointing your fingers at sinners only puts you deeper into the hole. You already have that sense of ‘I don’t like it when someone is arrogant’. The problem is, very few of the human species is humble. Write a paper on how ugly sin is, how dark it is, and how the message of the Gospel has changed the world. We as individuals are called to be a light in that darkness. If you want a challenge, try loving your neighbor for a week instead of pointing out all their faults. It takes heroic virtue to overcome our sinful nature.

You are pursuing your education! Good for you! Do you realize that the church of 2000 years has been lifting the suffering of humanity, because of Christ’s gospel? Healing the sick, and building hospitals. Feeding the hungry and taking care of the poor. Education, and the pursuit of science is because of the church, as well as art and music. Catholicism, ordinary people of faith, has built civilizations. You are standing on the shoulders of giants.