Why do so many Catholics act so superior?

[jacie]

In dealing with sin, keep in mind that the “sinner” will only come to true repentance once they have fallen deep enough in love with God to realize the gravity of their sin. Therefor, clobbering them over the head with it will not help them to realize the sin. Maybe us posters should focus more on helping the “sinner” get to know God better.

Also, I have to say that the few times I’ve posted on here, I have been surprised at then number of replies that are so quick to find fault with the simplest of questions or comments. Especially vicious are other parents when it comes to parenting questions. I think we could all learn to relax a bit more, and focus on the love.

 

[LilyM]

Don’t get me wrong; if people are asking for advice, then give it, but I agree that the tone is what is important.

Not one priest has ever told me that I’m in mortal sin…NEVER. I only witnessed this on CAF.

I ask for advice about something on CAF and mortal sin is thrown at me over and over and it’s like, wow…I’m doomed for Hell…then I talk to a priest and he treats me with kindness and compassion. He tells me that I’m a good Christian and to keep working at it.

There’s a big difference in the delivery. CAF would scare many lurkers and “could be” Catholics away. Especially teenagers that are looking to come back to the church or a husband that is committing adultery, etc.

Dear serap, how often have you point blank asked a priest whether any of your past sins have been mortal? I have, sometimes. And sometimes, in the most charitable possible way, the answer has in fact come back as ‘yes’.

I haven’t been in the slightest offended nor scared off by this - because it’s one of the reasons I seek advice from priests, after all. And if I ask a question about sin on here, it’s for the same reason and I expect the same frankness. You wouldn’t want your lawyer to NOT tell you if something you’d done was illegal, or your doctor NOT to tell you if you were in fact endangering your life by something you were doing, would you? Such would be an unpardonable breach of their duty.

Besides which, has it occurred to you that priests may not’ve told you that some sins (some, perhaps, that you haven’t asked them about) have been mortal because they thought you already knew it? Most people, after all, are a bit allergic to the confessional. They tend not to go to confession merely to confess venial sins, but only after they are aware of mortal sins.

 

[Irish_Girl_68]

Hear me out for a second. There have been so many threads on CAF started purely to minimize or point out bad behaviour of other people. I know that sometimes, people like to vent, but I can’t help, but think that a lot of well meaning Catholics tend to come across as being very superior.

Examples of topics where I see this all the time:

NFP vs. ABC threads
Modesty threads
Masterbation threads
Bringing children to mass threads
Marital problems threads (telling them to split up all the time)

Honestly, if I were not Catholic and I came on CAF, it would really put me off the idea of ever being Catholic. There’s no love coming from many posters on CAF.

How are we supposed to bring families and friends to the Catholic church if we are always condemning and frowning upon others telling them they are in mortal sin and giving this “holier than thou” attitude.

I really dislike it and it’s so unattractive. We as Catholics are supposed to be spreading love, compassion, empathy and grace. What happened?

Serap, I have to agree with pretty much all of what you’ve said. There often is a tone of “I’m a more faithful Catholic than you are, so there!” on some of these threads. Now why that is, I’ll never know. I suppose people just like to think they’re right. I’ve been guilty of that myself a time or two.

Truly, I do think many people mean well. Many consider it an act of mercy to instruct people away from error. I take no exception to that; all of us here should help one another grow spiritually. The problem is, many people use a verbal sledgehammer to get their point across. The message may be spot on but it often gets lost behind condemnation and scolding.

We all sin, we all fall short of God’s expectations and we all deserve his mercy. We all need to be more patient with each other and mindful of our duty towards expressing Christian charity. The world is rude enough. It should be that way on a Catholic website.

 

[Irish_Girl_68]

Serap, I have to agree with pretty much all of what you’ve said. There often is a tone of “I’m a more faithful Catholic than you are, so there!” on some of these threads. Now why that is, I’ll never know. I suppose people just like to think they’re right. I’ve been guilty of that myself a time or two.

Truly, I do think many people mean well. Many consider it an act of mercy to instruct people away from error. I take no exception to that; all of us here should help one another grow spiritually. The problem is, many people use a verbal sledgehammer to get their point across. The message may be spot on but it often gets lost behind condemnation and scolding.

We all sin, we all fall short of God’s expectations and we all deserve his mercy. We all need to be more patient with each other and mindful of our duty towards expressing Christian charity. The world is rude enough. It should be that way on a Catholic website.

Shouldn’t be that way on a Catholic website!

 

[Rascalking]

Serap, I have to agree with pretty much all of what you’ve said. There often is a tone of “I’m a more faithful Catholic than you are, so there!” on some of these threads. Now why that is, I’ll never know. I suppose people just like to think they’re right. I’ve been guilty of that myself a time or two.

Truly, I do think many people mean well. Many consider it an act of mercy to instruct people away from error. I take no exception to that; all of us here should help one another grow spiritually. The problem is, many people use a verbal sledgehammer to get their point across. The message may be spot on but it often gets lost behind condemnation and scolding.

We all sin, we all fall short of God’s expectations and we all deserve his mercy. We all need to be more patient with each other and mindful of our duty towards expressing Christian charity. The world is rude enough. It should be that way on a Catholic website.

Irish Girl, you seem to be reading my mind with this quote. Since your reading my mind, can you ask it to tell me where I last saw my car keys?

In all seriousness, both you and Serap are dead on accurate. Many catholics do act morally superior, but I just laugh when that happens. In my view, they are acting like moden day Pharisees. Squabbling about who is “more religious/holier than thou” while they ignore their own moral failings.

 

[LLMom]

I find this very pervasive on Catholic sites, particularly Traditional ones. That is why this blog was begun.

thechurchfanatic.blogspot.com

 

[Serap]

I’m actually with the other posters on this. While I don’t think anyone can flat out say “you’re in mortal sin” since mortal sin requires full knowledge and consent and others don’t know what you know about yourself, I think that priests and even laypeople DO have the responsibility to tell people when something is serious. I wouldn’t say “you’re in mortal sin” I’d say “this is serious and grave matter you know, and now that you know, you’re jeopardizing yourself with mortal sin.” I always presume ignorance since that’s as un-judgmental as you can get while still discerning the action and speaking the truth to its gravity.

I would hope confessors do the same or are even a little more blunt.

EXACTLY!!! A priest has never EVER told me that I’m in mortal sin, but he has told me that something is a grave matter and very significant in the Catholic church. I have never felt judged by a priest.

I would always go back to this same priest b/c he treats me with compassion and he is the most respected priest that I have ever met. He’s not rude, mean, arrogant, etc. He is kind, gentle and empathetic.

I opened up to him about a grave matter when I was 23 and he said, “you’ve never confessed this before?” I said, “no, I’ve been too afraid.” and he said, “bless you for coming!”

That is very different than me talking about this grave matter on CAF and having mortal sin thrown down my throat. I’ve seen it happen to others as well and it is wrong.

It’s different for a loving person to say, “this is a grave matter and I recommend that you seek counsel with a good priest who can help you. God bless you for opening up to us on CAF. I will pray for you.”

THAT is the appropriate response, but instead, many on CAF say, “that’s mortal sin!”…how do they know it’s mortal sin??? If the person did not know it’s a grave matter, then they are NOT in mortal sin. And then you get some on CAF saying, “how can you not know it’s mortal sin.” What is that? An example I would give was a time a homosexual man posted on CAF and he talked about how he had a husband and he adopted a Down’s child and a boy with autism.

He was a very kind man…you could tell by his posts. You know what people told him? You guessed it…they threw quotes from St. Paul; etc. about how he was doomed for Hell. Some even said that he was doomed with his life.

How can they make those drastic assumptions? Who are they?

I do have too much time on my hands right now. I am on MAT leave and don’t have much of a social life. When I go back to work, I’ll be focusing on other stuff, but this is my world right now

 

[Serap]

Irish Girl, you seem to be reading my mind with this quote. Since your reading my mind, can you ask it to tell me where I last saw my car keys?

In all seriousness, both you and Serap are dead on accurate. Many catholics do act morally superior, but I just laugh when that happens. In my view, they are acting like moden day Pharisees. Squabbling about who is “more religious/holier than thou” while they ignore their own moral failings.

BINGO I feel that way too. It’s like they justify their own sin by saying, “look, someone else is worse than me!”

 

[Julianna]

Because a great many people who spend their lives on Internet forums need to get lives. This is not really a Catholic issue.

 

[Serap]

Dear serap, how often have you point blank asked a priest whether any of your past sins have been mortal? I have, sometimes. And sometimes, in the most charitable possible way, the answer has in fact come back as ‘yes’.

I haven’t been in the slightest offended nor scared off by this - because it’s one of the reasons I seek advice from priests, after all. And if I ask a question about sin on here, it’s for the same reason and I expect the same frankness. You wouldn’t want your lawyer to NOT tell you if something you’d done was illegal, or your doctor NOT to tell you if you were in fact endangering your life by something you were doing, would you? Such would be an unpardonable breach of their duty.

Besides which, has it occurred to you that priests may not’ve told you that some sins (some, perhaps, that you haven’t asked them about) have been mortal because they thought you already knew it? Most people, after all, are a bit allergic to the confessional. They tend not to go to confession merely to confess venial sins, but only after they are aware of mortal sins.

Yes, I have asked a priest and he said, “only God knows if you are in mortal sin. It’s a grave matter and I’m glad you have come to me to talk about it.”

I have never ever been told I am in mortal sin by a priest. Point blank.

They tend not to go to confession merely to confess venial sins, but only after they are aware of mortal sins

If they didn’t know it was a grave matter before committing the sin, then they are not in mortal sin. They now understand it’s a grave matter and want to clear their conscience in Confession…a beautiful thing I might add.

An example would be a girl who had an abortion and later when she’s much older, decides that she wants to confess it.

 

[Julianna]

Don’t get me wrong; if people are asking for advice, then give it, but I agree that the tone is what is important.

Not one priest has ever told me that I’m in mortal sin…NEVER. I only witnessed this on CAF.

I** ask for advice about something on CAF and mortal sin is thrown at me over and over and it’s like, wow…I’m doomed for Hell**…then I talk to a priest and he treats me with kindness and compassion. He tells me that I’m a good Christian and to keep working at it.

There’s a big difference in the delivery. **CAF would scare many lurkers and “could be” Catholics away. **Especially teenagers that are looking to come back to the church or a husband that is committing adultery, etc.

Makes me wonder where they buy the handbaskets…I know it’s not Wal-Mart

I totally agree. One reason why this moderate stays…don’t want the board to tilt too much to the right nor too much too the left (well the latter will never happen) but to be fair, I had to mention it.

 

[LilyM]

Yes, I have asked a priest and he said, “only God knows if you are in mortal sin. It’s a grave matter and I’m glad you have come to me to talk about it.”

Only God? If only God can know then WE can’t even know our own souls and so can’t possibly be judged. So your priest is incorrect to the extent that God AND we know the state of our souls. And if you can, then why not someone else, assuming you are frank and honest with them about what you’ve done and why?

‘If your brother sins, rebuke him’, as Our Lord said. The idea presupposes that we can, at times, know that someone is a sinner. Being able to rebuke someone presupposes knowledge of the precise nature of their sin, which includes its gravity. Of course in charity we can presume ignorance on their part - at least the first time we mention an issue to them. After that they certainly can’t be excused on THAT grounds at least.

They tend not to go to confession merely to confess venial sins, but only after they are aware of mortal sins

If they didn’t know it was a grave matter before committing the sin, then they are not in mortal sin.

An example would be a girl who had an abortion and later when she’s much older, decides that she wants to confess it.

True enough, as far as it goes.

Of course there’s ignorance and there’s ‘ignorance’ - oftentimes we don’t ‘know’ something is a mortal sin because we bury our head in the sand about it and pretend our doing so is gonna save us. Or we overexaggerate how powerless we were to resist and so fool ourselves into thinking we didn’t fully consent. Or make all sorts of other excuses for ourselves. These excuses only compound the sinfulness of the original act, of course.

The Devil loves to trick us in those sorts of ways. Note this is no reflection on you, or on those people who genuinely do strive to understand what God expects of them in terms of sin. But we’re all fallible in our self-assessment, and if there is any common fault in this day and age it’s that we make way too many excuses for ourselves and we’re way too lenient on ourselves.

They now understand it’s a grave matter and want to clear their conscience in Confession…a beautiful thing I might add.

The view from the top of Mt Everest must be a beautiful thing - but how many people have the courage to climb up?

Catholics are staying away from the confessional in droves. Many who DO know all about grave sin and the requirements of mortal sin and sin regardless STILL don’t confess because their pride, laziness, complacency or other character flaws get in the way of their doing so.

Or, worse, the pride, laziness or complacency of some priests who very much discourage confession or pretend that no one could ever possibly be in mortal sin any more - gosh, we must be so much holier than our ancestors if they are to be believed!

Thank God some of us and some of our priests DO still believe in the sacrament enough to take advantage of it even for venial sins, but those are in the minority.

Excuse me for being in somewhat of a pessimistic mood. I’ve just been getting stuck into St Teresa of Avila’s life story, and her absolute horror of all sin, even the most minor, is making me ponder …

 

[phil8888]

Hear me out for a second. There have been so many threads on CAF started purely to minimize or point out bad behaviour of other people. I know that sometimes, people like to vent, but I can’t help, but think that a lot of well meaning Catholics tend to come across as being very superior.

Examples of topics where I see this all the time:

NFP vs. ABC threads
Modesty threads
Masterbation threads
Bringing children to mass threads
Marital problems threads (telling them to split up all the time)

Honestly, if I were not Catholic and I came on CAF, it would really put me off the idea of ever being Catholic. There’s no love coming from many posters on CAF.

How are we supposed to bring families and friends to the Catholic church if we are always condemning and frowning upon others telling them they are in mortal sin and giving this “holier than thou” attitude.

I really dislike it and it’s so unattractive. We as Catholics are supposed to be spreading love, compassion, empathy and grace. What happened?

Amen to that Serap. I actually blogged about that one time. I think you are spot on on that observation. Like I said in my blog, it’s like some people will say stuff that sounds totally unloving and condemning and they’ll sort of justify it by saying “well sometimes the truth hurts”. it’s as though charity can be completely foregone as long as you’re stating some objective truth.

you even mentioned something specific that I talked about before and that is the whole “split up” thing. If anyone posts any relationship issue whatsoever, it seems 90% of the suggestions is for the couple to split up. the logic is:

a) there’s an issue
b) if there’s an issue, there must be something wrong with the relationship
c) if there’s something wrong, they should split up.

if the couple is married, they suggest they seek an annulment and see if they can get one. it’s like they’re using annulment as a “Catholic divorce”.

Another thing is that these are anonymous posters on the internet. they can be as hardline as they want because they don’t have to face any actual people. when I have gone to very good and holy orthodox people about the same issues I have brought up here, I have found a huge amount of love and compassion with valuable information to help me. I was left with a good feeling.

I hope not too many people just try to contradict you here. I think what you are saying is very important.

 

[phil8888]

In dealing with sin, keep in mind that the “sinner” will only come to true repentance once they have fallen deep enough in love with God to realize the gravity of their sin. Therefor, clobbering them over the head with it will not help them to realize the sin. Maybe us posters should focus more on helping the “sinner” get to know God better.

Also, I have to say that the few times I’ve posted on here, I have been surprised at then number of replies that are so quick to find fault with the simplest of questions or comments. Especially vicious are other parents when it comes to parenting questions. I think we could all learn to relax a bit more, and focus on the love.

Good points.

 

[phil8888]

Irish Girl, you seem to be reading my mind with this quote. Since your reading my mind, can you ask it to tell me where I last saw my car keys?

In all seriousness, both you and Serap are dead on accurate. Many catholics do act morally superior, but I just laugh when that happens. In my view, they are acting like moden day Pharisees. Squabbling about who is “more religious/holier than thou” while they ignore their own moral failings.

Good points Rascalkings. It’s not the technical aspects that anyone is debating here. Nobody is saying “why don’t they just say contraception is good!” it’s all about the delivery of the message. if someone mentions that they’ve used contraception and someone jumps in and hits them with a moral 2by4 over the head, that person will be very negatively affected. they should try to get to know the person and offer advise after they have built a relationship. no one is arguing about morality. it’s about the delivery.

it’s just like you said the pharisees. they were correct in what they were saying. they weren’t teaching doctrinal errors. but it was about HOW they went about talking to people that was the problem. imagine a saint, or someone you would describe as “saintly”. do they go around with a bullhorn and in very uncharitable terms condemn people that they see doing wrong? no.

 

[Nec5]

If you do not want your actions judged according to the wisdom of God as revealed to us through scripture and apostolic tradition, there are a plethora of churches and religions where you can meditate, congregate, sing a few songs, be accepted, and never be told you are wrong.

It’s not a question of superiority. It is a question of right and wrong. The postings in this thread smack of “i don’t like being told what I’m doing is or may be sinful”. If I and others challenge an immoral idea here, it isn’t an act of pride. We’re all screw ups in our own way, but that does not mean we should remain silent or coddle sin. Quite the opposite.

I would remind everyone here of the passages in the New Testament concerning lukewarm communities. I believe it’s in Revelations and elsewhere, but I’ve never been good at memorizing references. God is hardly any kinder to them than he is to those in outright rebellion. There is no middle ground when it comes to the moral war.

 

[kevinsgirl]

I agree that we could probably all use a little more charity on the forums and in our lives. Will definitely try to do that more.

KG

 

[CradleCath]

It’s true that some people are not very ‘loving’. . .

But it’s also true that if a person is in mortal sin (and while we don’t judge, we can certainly say if an action is objectively a mortal sin, without being judgmental. . .after all, why have the 10 commandments if we can’t then say, “stealing is sinful!”, right?), it would be a very ‘unloving’ thing to say to that person, “meh, do as you please!”

Have you noticed that the people who most often (not always of course) complain of people being ‘holier than thou’ are usually people who want to do something wrong?

And what happens then is that all the emotional ‘stops’ are brought out, and a huge argument breaks out, and then you get people getting frustrated and hurt on both sides of the issue.

And THEN you get people who come into the discussion part way and see all the ‘worst’ kinds of ‘fire and brimstone’ (or hear accusations from people that this is how they have been ‘treated’). . .and these people, being kind, normal, loving Catholics are appalled that other Catholics (according to either what they themselves have read on a few threads by a few posters, or by those whom they love or know saying that this is how they have been treated by Catholics) have acted in such a wrong way. . .

And they quite correctly bring up that we should not be ‘acting badly’.

But. . .is it really that ‘so many’ Catholics 'act superior. . .

Or are there also many situations where a lot of people simply assume that anybody who is trying to tell them what they do not want to hear is ONLY doing so because that person 'is feeling morally superior, judgmental, mean-spirited, etc?

If a person wants to do something, even if you approached them with the sweetest of words, the most gentle and loving demeanor in the world, but what you said wasn’t what they wanted to hear, I think that they would ‘hear’ your words as sour, and perceive your demeanor as nasty, superior and self-righteous.

The person in an adulterous relationship is not to be ‘condemned’ as a bad person, surely. But in order to get ‘clean’ with God, the person must leave the relationship or cease the ‘action’. . .and there is no other way. We can’t say, “well, provided you really LOVE the guy/girl, you can keep on, God will understand.”
That’s what they WANT to hear. That is the ‘loving’ answer that they seek, and the ONLY loving answer they seek, but it is absolutely, totally wrong, and it is not really loving, because remaining in that wrong sinful relationship without repenting could put the person in hell for eternity. It might ‘hurt’ to hear that one needs to stop doing something which one truly ‘loves’, but stopping it can lead to ETERNAL LIFE with Christ. . .something far more important. And helping people to such a life is more important to me than whether they think that I ‘appear’ to them as 'loving.

Just my thoughts.

 

[OriginalJS]

I must be living in a strange place. I don’t experience Catholics acting superior to others anymore than anyone else. The only place I see evidence of attitudes of superiority in groups is on websites such as this one. I suppose it is because those who come here, and to others have strong opinions they want to voice.

 

[Redratfish]

I must be living in a strange place. I don’t experience Catholics acting superior to others anymore than anyone else. The only place I see evidence of attitudes of superiority in groups is on websites such as this one. I suppose it is because those who come here, and to others have strong opinions they want to voice.

I agree. Most Catholics who would think to join a Catholic forum would either (A.) Need advice, or (B) have strong opinions.

For me, it was (A), but I do have some opinions, but not as wild as others.

Also, from my experience in real life, the larger a group, the stronger the individual feels. Since most people here are Catholic, most Catholics can get a little big headed.