Is CAF a good guide to theology, politics, and social attitudes among US Catholics?

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Wow, I don’t fit all those stereotypes. And the “some” that I do fit have been roundly criticized by some folks here, which tells me that they don’t fit other of your stereotypes. I’m sure CAF is a somewhat select populations, but I don’t think it’s the selection you cited. As Tis_Bearself suggested earlier, perhaps it’d be fair to say CAF represents folks who care a bit extra about Catholic doctrine + have the time to be online extra. All the other stuff, not so much. Afterall, I disagree with a lot of political posts on here… but I’m not here to talk politics so you don’t have any idea what I think politically.
 
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Imo it’s better to study CatholicISM instead of CathoLICS, cuz most of us aren’t perfecr, while Christ and His teachings are.
 
Jen7 said:
Afterall, I disagree with a lot of political posts on here… but I’m not here to talk politics so you don’t have any idea what I think politically.
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Same here. I’m not on this forum to give my opinions on Trump, impeachment, immigration, gun control, the death penalty, who I voted for last election, who I’m voting for this election, the latest misbehvior by Hill/ Weiner et al, Brexit, the EU, AOC, etc.

I will very occasionally contribute one or two posts to a political thread, and for certain Supreme Court cases like the wedding cake baker I’ve posted quite a bit because I was interested in the legal issue involved.

But in general I’m not into political discussions on this forum because it often turns into a dumpster fire with arguing, flags and banning and also, I’m here to discuss matters of faith, not all this political stuff which is “of the world”. If I wanted to discuss politics I could do that on Facebook, I don’t need to come over here. I find most political opinions to be boring. I think most politicians are sad human beings obsessed with having the crowds love them.

Consequently most of my political views aren’t on public display here and I prefer to keep it that way. Voting is secret for a reason.
 
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catholic03 said:
Firstly, do the Catholics you know go to church
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People are using the word Catholic but I’m not sure what they mean.
I know many who were baptized Catholic but now go to non denominational churches. Count them?

I know many others who rarely go to church, who reject most of the Church’s teachings.Do you count those people as liberal Catholics or non Catholics?
 
OKComputer said:
.000000000000000000000000001% of the population of the US Catholic
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In the prior version of CAF, they claimed 1 million users. If you assume half of those are in the US and take the 70+ million Catholics in the US, it is .7%, so, a small percentage but not a negligible figure.
 
I don’t think all 1 million users actually post on the forum though. If that was the case we’d see a much higher post volume. It is likely that they get 1 million unique hits because CAF threads come up in just about every Google search on a Catholic topic.
 
Working for parishes, I think that the people who say “the political divisions are not happening in my parish” are because parishioners tend to form friendships with others who share their political views. We have a mid sized parish, 1,000 ish families. The parish up the road has about 400 families. I can tell you, where people sit at Coffee and donuts after Mass, or those who go out for a meal together after Mass, which groups are of which political persuasion. Believe me, you do not find a libertarian sitting in with the republican groups.

Parishes in general lean red or blue, mine is a predominately red parish in a deep red state. I truly dread election years because things get ugly in the parish.
 
No. Theology, maybe. Because Catholic theology either is or isn’t.

But for politics and social attitudes, no. People self-select their participation, and there’s no way of knowing who is behind the keyboard. I think CAF tends to lean toward specific bands on the socio-politico spectrum.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
This may not have been your intent but you do come off as disapproving of the views that don’t conform to the ones held by those you meet.
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I apologise if it came across that way. Most of my adult life I’ve been involved with churches (I used to work at the Church of England’s headquarters in Westminster and had quite a lot to do with what was then called ECUSA) and universities, so in both those environments I’ve met a lot of Americans, all highly intelligent, highly educated people.

There really aren’t a lot of things I’m intolerant about. Mostly I accept that people have different opinions. The only areas on which I liable to be intolerant are: (1) vaccines work, not using vaccines increases the incidence of preventable diseases, (2) climate change is real and we are causing it, (3) all humans are the same species, (4) don’t dishonour the victims of Nazi Germany and those who fought to defeat it by distorting history for your own political ends, (5) homosexuals are not the same thing as paedophiles, (6) in the British constitution, the executive is intentionally subordinate to the legislature and judiciary, (7) if you think you’re more Catholic than the pope, you have probably misunderstood how it works. But other than that, I’m open to all opinions.
Aquinas11 said:
You explicitly stated the “Catholics I know” differ from CAF then proceeded to generalize all CAF with right wing stereotypes , so is it just that the right wing friends aren’t Catholic?
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I apologise for that. I originally posted a much longer post but it was deleted because it was too long, so I had to summarise and take out all the nuance. Obviously there are all kinds of people on CAF. I was just highlighting commonly held positions that I found surprising. I have a Catholic friend in London who is American and has voted Republican in every presidential, senatorial, congressional, gubernatorial, state legislature, and local election since Bill Clinton was president (with the sole exception of not voting for Donald Trump).
Wm777 said:
and, then, like any web forum, it’s got its share of trolls.
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I do sometimes wonder, but I also appreciate that some people have really, really strongly held views and that they may be completely genuine even if they seem incomprehensible to me. E.g., for about six months there was a guy on CAF who wanted have the right to vote linked to paying a minimum amount of federal income tax, although he then said he believed in small ethno-nationalist nation states ruled as absolute monarchies with some kind of council of nobles as advisers to the king, and I think he was serious.
 
TheLittleLady said:
I truly dread election years because things get ugly in the parish.
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That’s sad to hear. I don’t think it gets as bad as that here, partly because our political parties were quite moderate until recently and partly because demographics means that most people in a parish probably either vote the same way or aren’t eligible to vote anyway. It’s all changed with Brexit, which has really divided the country into two opposing tribes. In the Catholic Church, it’s maybe not so much an issue, at any rate around where I live, because (1) so many of the Catholics around here are EU migrants anyway, (2) the Catholics who aren’t EU migrants are from Africa or Asia and probably don’t entirely get why Europeans feel so strongly one way or the other about the issues, (3) the rest probably voted the same way.

The statistics are interesting, because one poll found that UK Catholics actually supported Brexit, but the problem with that poll was it was based on whether people self-identify as Catholics, not whether they practise the faith or even believe anything particularly Catholic. There are areas of the north of England where Brexit was very popular for social and economic reasons, and, coincidentally, those areas have large populations who identify as Catholic for historical and cultural reasons. The same with Anglicans, actually. Any statistics that show Anglicans supporting anything should be taken with extreme caution because the percentage of Anglicans who actually worship regularly in an Anglican parish is about 4 percent of the total number of people self-identifying as Anglican.
 
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Wm777 said:
Your question was broadly stated, so an accurate answer could only be broadly answered.
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I think that the best that we can do is acknowledge that there’s a CAF world and an offline Catholic world.

Perhaps a better way to reframe the thread topic is this: In our own personal experiences, what differences do we see between the two?

One of my favorite things about CAF is hearing from people either of other faiths or no faith. Unfortunately, CAF does give off a distorted impression of our faith. I’m frankly less worried about how our Catholic peers from abroad perceive things and much more concerned about how our non-Catholic members might view our faith based on what they read here.
 
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Glad this was the condensed version. I would hate to see how long the original version was. 😀
 
A million is a huge number. I’m a little skeptical of that, but if that was the number, I’d be thrilled. I think CAF is a wonderful place to learn about your faith and I wish more people were on it!
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I can see where one might take his post as “intolerance”, but your summary does imply that you think the viewpoints of whatever type Catholics you are meeting and spending time around are “more correct”, just by virtue of the fact that you seem to think it’s odd that Catholics posting on CAF would hold a different view than the Catholics you meet.
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I didn’t read this persons summary that way. I didn’t see the “more correct”. I also just didn’t see how the Op thought it was odd. I think could read that way, but it could also be read in another way. When I read it I originally I just didn’t think these things.
Tis_Bearself said:
This may not have been your intent but you do come off as disapproving of the views that don’t conform to the ones held by those you meet
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I just don’t think the OP came off as disapproving. Again I think it could be read in that way, but I think it could also be read another way. Maybe that was what the OP was trying to achieve. I can’t read minds that’s for sure. But saying “you do come off” is a pretty conclusive statement. It’s really a matter of opinion in my opinion.

Edit:added “just” in paragraph two
 
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blackforest said:
I’m frankly less worried about how our Catholic peers from abroad perceive things and much more concerned about how our non-Catholic members might view our faith based on what they read here.
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That is a good point. I think if I were, say, a Quaker, and I came here hoping to find out about Catholicism, I would see things that to a Quaker would be off-putting very quickly. I picked Quaker somewhat randomly; I could just as easily have said a Hindu or an Episcopalian. I’m not going to post links, because it will only inflame more animosity, but this is the sort of thing I think people would find off-putting:
  • “Catholicism is the true religion, Hinduism, Anglicanism, and whatever pagan religion was popular in Kent are not. Truth has rights, error has no rights.”
  • “it is almost certain that Epstien was CIA or Mossad”
  • “Don’t expect any faith to survive extended periods of time at a “Catholic” school.”
  • “This is why tolerance is cancerous.”
  • “All this Mother Earth nonsense sounds like eco commie garbage. It’s an attempt to elevate savage pagan worship to that of worship of the true God.”
  • “Religion births culture. That’s why Europe and it’s descendants had the best culture, because it was born of Catholicism.”
  • “I want all peoples to have their own homelands. Poland for Poles, England for the English, Scotland for the Scots. I reject the notion that a Pashtun from Afghanistan can be an Englishman and Vice Versa.”
  • “I just see current immigration when coupled with a lot of the political issues as being a deliberate attempt to bloodlessly replace current populations of certain country’s.”
  • “Do I have a problem with whites becoming minorities in their own country’s? Yeah, I do.”
  • “The Ugandans are not wrong though. Homosexual Predator abuse survivors end up turning homosexuals themselves because of the abuse they endured. This is how they “recruit” young boys and turn them into sodomites like them.”
  • “The prevalence of homosexuals who have been perpetrators of sexual abuse of minors? I think it’s pretty clear that the majority are predatory homosexuals”
  • “Remember that America was born from the Freemasons, the same Freemasons who made it their mission to destroy any and all royalty and kingships. From the kingship of Christ to the kingship of the rightful sovereigns of Nations.”
Let’s face it, none of this would be a good advertisement for Catholicism, or even an accurate portrayal of Catholicism, to somebody who knew nothing about it beforehand. Somebody who was, say, a Sikh from India, or a Muslim from Senegal, would say, “So, Catholics believe in ethnic nationalism and monarchism, they are paranoid about Freemasonry, homosexuality, and antisemitic conspiracy theories, and the purpose of Catholic schools is to make the students less Catholic.” For somebody with no sense of context, no contact with Catholics, or even Christians, this would be an entirely reasonable conclusion. After all, look at the misconceptions that people in historically Christian societies have about other religions.
 
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With all due respect, if you can actually remember that many posts to quote them here, I think you’re getting way too wrapped up in an Internet forum. I can barely remember what was posted this morning.
Also, how much of this stuff is coming out of the cesspit that is World News? I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say i think that entire forum should be nuked, but there are those on here who like it.
 
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