Unfriendliness of the Catholic Church

[BarbaraTherese]

In the main I experience The Church as unfriendly, even hostile - on diocesan and parish levels. I said to my doctor (psychiatrist) when I saw her last week “If I was a Catholic for the people in it, I would be outta it”. Catholicism, I think, on ground level of the human (drawing from personal experience and this means limited experience) still struggles with the issue of sufferers of mental illness though the words coming out of the Church (the spin) as an organization sure sound loverly if patronizing - there is not much putting into actual practise. I have been in my parish 27years and still no one speaks to me hence I have nowadays abandoned attending all parish and diocesan functions and also stopped volunteering since I never get replies. I am happy I am still able to attend Mass and The Sacraments.
I am sure there are very enlightened parishes and diocese…I sure would like to hear from these with suggestions on how I can address the issues in mine without - by putting my hand and head up - scaring them all near to death with a vocal sufferer of MI in their midst. My objective is not to scare people or even stir the pot…rather to get my parish and diocese to look at their attitudes, do something about them and arrive at a more enlightened and educated understanding of MI. To date any efforts to address these issues simply means I am “sent to Coventry” and wind up doing more damage than good, simply because my parish and diocese cannot handle hearing the truth from a sufferer of MI.

 

[pmmjpls]

Dearest daughter in Christ,

What I can add to all the wonderful replies so far I do not know. It is God who calls each of us to some situation or another I think.

I tell all my most beloved non-Catholic Christians that they need to back off from criticism and I tell them why. It is because God calls each of us to some worship (love) for Him. Us, Catholics also need not criticize. The amount of beauty in Protestant Churches from God, working in and through those people is amazing. It is equally amazing in the Catholic Church. How can we like the Apostles complain to Jesus, they aren’t doing it right? Do we wish to be told like the Apostles, If they are not against us they are for us.

I tell the Catholics the same thing. As I understand it, God assigns each of us tasks and worship (love) to do. If he chooses one person to be Protestant and I object, I am objecting with God,it seems to me. Job changed his mind when He saw God, because he probably learned more and he changed his mind. It is not out of dreaded fear that he did this it was out of knowlege. He said that what he had only heard of and now had seen made him realize his error. (Like Paul when he saw Jesus, I think there was an information transfer that was unfelt yet there. When this happened to me, with Jesus, and the Trinity, I was stunned later to realize how much, I knew with less words. The same happened to me.) Before going on note it is Jesus who said this day or that day is important to one person and not to another. It was Jesus who said if this is worship to God we are to let it alone, for no one can tell God He is wrong and be correct. So no matter what you are being called to do, do it. No matter what anyone else is called to do let them do it. We can’t criticize. It was Job’s fear-of-hurting-God, that was the main form of Job’s fear-of-God I think. I am firmly of the feeling that God The Father is sublimely-incredibly-Tender and-mild. The power is there and sometimes He is upset, and it hurts Him, and sometimes like a mother or a father He is forced into stopping folks from further hurting Him or His people. He is going to seem angry when this happens. Yet, like a mother, once the punishment is over, He shows and hopes we accept His sublimely-incredibly-Tender and-mild nature.

And, if you think this is wrong, why do you think it is so if The Holy Spirit is in the other churches? I don’t recall a single Christian Church, where The Holy Spirit is not present. There are numerous stories and proofs of His Presence. The apostles noted that if The Holy Spirit approved of any person or group, then they had to approve.

Now on the non-friendly churches, really, is it so important that the chuches be friendly or God? Okay, that sounded a little harsh and yet it wasn’t supposed to be. I Gave my entire life to God in all things in all ways and always and everywhere years ago and I wrote this on a piece of plastic paper which stays in my wallet. Now for that or it was always God’s plan, I have a lot of graces from Him. In my assigned tasks it is this. The rosary daily. Mary never took that command back. The bible daily, and one I can understand. Eucharistic Adoration, without being scheduled for one hour per week. I use going into a church for an hour sitting next to where the Eucharist is for an hour when adoration is not possible. Mass is weekly. Confession is monthly. Now, I did not believe the statements made about Eucharistic adoration and daily rosary, and mothly confession, and daily bible reading, morning and night, yet it all happened. I did not do it because of the statements attached to Eucharistic adoration and the rosary and and and. Yet, it all happened. It happens to everyone who commits. Here are the five Bible basics, and the rest comes from the church. God selects each of us before the foundations of the earth were formed to know him. Jesus: Love consists of this. Doing the Will of My Father in Heaven. 1. Love God with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole strength. 2. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. 3. Marriage is forever. 4. Love others as I have loved you.

Bye and I hope this helps. …Curt…

 

[adelore]

In the main I experience The Church as unfriendly, even hostile - on diocesan and parish levels. I said to my doctor (psychiatrist) when I saw her last week “If I was a Catholic for the people in it, I would be outta it”. Catholicism, I think, on ground level of the human (drawing from personal experience and this means limited experience) still struggles with the issue of sufferers of mental illness though the words coming out of the Church (the spin) as an organization sure sound loverly if patronizing - there is not much putting into actual practise. I have been in my parish 27years and still no one speaks to me hence I have nowadays abandoned attending all parish and diocesan functions and also stopped volunteering since I never get replies. I am happy I am still able to attend Mass and The Sacraments.
I am sure there are very enlightened parishes and diocese…I sure would like to hear from these with suggestions on how I can address the issues in mine without - by putting my hand and head up - scaring them all near to death with a vocal sufferer of MI in their midst. My objective is not to scare people or even stir the pot…rather to get my parish and diocese to look at their attitudes, do something about them and arrive at a more enlightened and educated understanding of MI. To date any efforts to address these issues simply means I am “sent to Coventry” and wind up doing more damage than good, simply because my parish and diocese cannot handle hearing the truth from a sufferer of MI.

Maybe you could type a letter and mail it to your Priest at the Parish you attend. Also put a copy of the letter in the offering plate, in a envalope. Maybe suggest a “serman” about this topic in your letter. It’s worth a try.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Maybe you could type a letter and mail it to your Priest at the Parish you attend. Also put a copy of the letter in the offering plate, in a envalope. Maybe suggest a “serman” about this topic in your letter. It’s worth a try.

Thank you very much Adelore for the very kind and thoughtful response and suggestion. Very much appreciated indeed:thumbsup:

Sadly over the years I have tried a letter - a few of them - to our pp, with no result at all. At one point and very desperate I asked a senior mental health worker to meet with me and my pp…and I arranged that meeting here. After Father had left the SMH worker said to me: “Everything we said went in one ear and straight out the other” And all I could reply was “I know”. It was very obvious Father was disinterested - quite obvious. Nothing happened as a result of that meeting. In volunteering in my parish I have not offered my services for lofty positions, rather the most lowly and simple so as not to startle my parish with any lofty ambitions. My offers are never replied to in any way whatsoever. If I verbally face to face make an offer, I get they reply “I’ll contact you” but they never do. In explaining all this to our nun parish visitor (new to our parish) and asking her help, for some reason she though it all funny…laughed…and that was the end of that.
Twice I have made an appt. to speak with our pp, twice the meeting was cancelled. The second time, Father merely said to me as he walked past me leaving the parish house, “I have to go somewhere” and that was that.
I asked out relief priest if he had seen a recent program on mental illness and he replied that he was not interested in that “sort of stuff”. It was a real dismissal of me as a person - perhaps not meant as such, but that was how I felt for sure.
I am not exactly tuppence short of the penny and was awarded in 2004 Outstanding Student on my college campus which is an ordinary college campus, but for adult students. All my results are A or A+.
These posts are not by way of compliant really, although there is that element, rather it is to highlight a situation that just may be more widespread than my parish re sufferers of mental illness…and even the hope one of our parish leaders either contributing here on CAF or lurking now and then will read one of my posts and be alerted to the situation, since I do not actively disguise my identity. Over and above that, I hope to educate others on the plight and sufferings of those who do suffer a MI and the difficulties their journeys may present and perhaps worsened by their own parishes.
I have written letters to the editor of our Catholic local newspaper and most kindly published albeit written in a more general a toned down manner - but still alerting to a situation. But nothing happens.
I hope too, despite my ‘complaints’ to bring hope and encouragement to sufferers in knowing they are not alone.
The one thing I would never do no matter how bad my situation may be or may grow, is leave Catholicism. There is the human face of The Church and that to which we are destined : Known as the Visible and Invisible Church.
Sadly in my parish there were five of us. I only remain in The Church…the others have left Catholicism and even abandoned Faith and belief in God - all due to treatment received.

Lack of fellowship and friendliness can have drastic impact and not only I am aware re sufferers of MI perhaps. I have been a practising Catholic for my 63 years and I am aware that cliques do form in parishes and very hard to break into them and make normal friendships with fellow Catholics, although there are exceptions. I know, prior to mental illness I was in these cliques and very active on parish and more limitedly on diocesan level.

Fellowship and friendliness is sadly lacking to my experience in Catholic parishes.

One thing shows in my life without trying, and that is that I am not Catholic because of the people in it and the rewards these friendships etc. present…non existent by force of circumstances imposed on me, not by my personal choice.

God bless you and rewards you richly:thumbsup: …my hands forever empty…Barb

 

[pmmjpls]

Hi,
Apparently I made a mistake and did not know your situation. I am not sure what if anything I can do except to share my exact situation with yours, that I have never found different in any Catholic Church.
((Yes, I did see a post of one person, probably and SJ type, who says the opposite is true. It is true for him really and his personality and not all personalities. So in general he is incorrect, and only in his specific case of people like him is he correct. I am told statistically it is 40% of the general population yet it is skewed between rural and city. Rural areas are overwhelmingly populated by a SJ personality of 60% or greater. City populations are overwhelmingly populated by a SP personality. Each sees the other as difficult. The priest situation is also the same in that SJ’s probably find themselves in rural environments, and SP’s find themselves in City environments. I am SP, I work in prodution. I live in a rural area. When the company forced us into the classes above to find out about ourselves and others, I found I was part of a group which is 40% of the general population, yet, it is only 3% of the population where I was working. That is lonely.)) (Now, the SJ, SP is not what is to be taken from here, it is the disparity between personality types from city to rural. It is extremely lonely and diffficult to be different than your community. I found this cross to be long and yet rewarded. It seems I had to go through this. Maybe all crosses, which I think are difficulties given us by God for our benefit, are gifts from God.)
So, even to this day, I go to church alone. I sit alone. I go because in various literature items are found. Keep Holy the Lord’s Day. Do not forsake your meeting together. I am in every sanctuary in every church. I get lonely. Can you not spend just one hour with me a week. Do not show you holiness. Do not let people know you are praying, go into your bedroom and close the door. What you do in private, I will reward you in public for. Mary asked people in France to pray the rosary daily. She never took back that request. Jesus told Faustina items. None of these were taken back.
Personal item: As I slowly was being introduced to the ways of God at age 52, I came across an article about Mary and the Rosary. It said she wanted us to pray this daily. I of course did not want to do this. I looked for every way out of this I could find. I found nothing that would allow me to not do this without refusing Mary’s request. I didn’t even really know how to do it properly. I knew the rough way, I did not know all the little prayers, nor, did I even do the mysteries. I started and continued to pray the rosary, and did not want to do it, except She asked, and I couldn’t refuse. About a year later, I ran across another article. It was labeled Promises of the Rosary. Now, I was confused. Promises??? What promises??? I had never heard of any promises. There were more than ten. It was right before me the list and I started to read promise number one and realized it had already happened. I then read promise number two and realized it too had already happened. I continued on and reached the last promise, and realized that they had all come true, as they had all happened already, and only in the last year since I had started praying the Rosary.
My daughter, excaped a cult. The automobile situation was now okay. I had received special graces. I was kept from making some big spiritual errors. There is more. The Catholic Church, rightly tells us, that the Rosary is the single best solution to the even the most hopeless. It has taken me, not into the mainstream of society, but into the mainstream of God’s ways. I have always been different in many ways. In the cool ways I am different, those are not changable, it is God who has made this so. It is for me, to deal with this, with mostly now, God and Mary’s help. The Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration of it’s promise of making our hearts more fervant and those with fervant hearts closer to perfection, is but two of the most useful items for me from this Church of Christ called the Roman Catholic Church.
I struggle, I really do. I can’t tell you how hard it is. The priests have some things for me in their homilies. They are not perfect, as occasionally, they are wrong in their homilies. The deacons in our parish are more often wrong in their homilies. They are all getting better, when as gently as possible, the correct is shown to them. I have stopped this. It is very stressful. It works yet I dont’t like it. Who is going to correct me when I am wrong.

 

[Copperman]

Having been an evangelical in the past, it has been my experience that, pound for pound, Catholics tend to be a little more perfunctory about going to Mass than the evangelicals are about attending their services.

 

[pmmjpls]

Hi,
I hope you are fine or coping. I think what you are going through is the same for a lot of us. It is for me, and it has been this way in the church and in life since I was age 5.
Trust if you can this, Jesus knows what you are going through.
…Curt…