Why do so many Catholics act so superior?

[Serap]

St. Francis de Sales said, “We must cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet.”

Betsy

I love that quote and it’s so so true!

 

[ac_claire]

You think it’s bad here, you should take a look on Liturgy & Sacraments. People love to start what I call, “Ain’t It Awful” threads. Topics like:

• improper dress for Mass
• cell phones
• talking before and after Mass when “good people” want to pray
• short lines for Confession & long lines for Communion
• headcoverings
• Lifeteen
• music
• Communion in the hand
• kneeling
• or, heaven forbid, the priest changed a couple of words!

The gist is, other people are terrible because they don’t behave as I do, or they don’t like the same things I do, or they don’t follow the rules the way I think they should be followed. Cluck, cluck, cluck. No solutions, no loving suggestions, just, “Ain’t it awful?” The kind of thing that prompts the question, “How is it helpful to bring this up?”

It’s different when people ask for help or advice. Sometimes they must be told hard things, but as St. Francis de Sales said, “We must cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet.”

Why are you judgemental about these L&S people? Where is your charity, your understanding?? I’ve seen the kinds of threads you’re talking about, betsy. *Most of them *do indeed ask for advice or offer solutions. And others are just venting, like you are right now. They have just as much as right to do that as the OP of this current thread we’re on does.

 

[baltobetsy]

Why are you judgemental about these L&S people? Where is your charity, your understanding?? I’ve seen the kinds of threads you’re talking about, betsy. *Most of them *do indeed ask for advice or offer solutions. And others are just venting, like you are right now. They have just as much as right to do that as the OP of this current thread we’re on does.

Busted.

 

[PeterMuz]

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.

You obvlisouly know the three requirements you have to have for a sin to be mortal. What the priest told you is wrong. It is possible for a person to know another person is in mortal sin. Not all of the time, but it happens all the time. You see people who know what they are doing is gravely wrong and the choose to do it anyway. Yes confession is a beautiful thing. When you go to confession, most priests will not tell you you are in mortal sin, even if you are. You can to confess that sin. If you confess and then they say “yeah your are in mortal sin”, unless you ask. People would not go back to confession. For many people, confession is hard and they feel vulnerable, they don’t need a priest to tell them how wrong they were after they confess.

 

[PeterMuz]

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

So are you morally superior to most Catholics? In these two short sentences you have passed judgment on others which is exactly what you said you had a problem with in the first place. You made a huge assumption about and their moral state. Kinda hypocritical if you ask me…

 

[white_sheep]

Is this thread any different?

 

[PeterMuz]

Shannyk, you are not one of the posters that act superior. You always come across with charity and you do it the right way

So if I seem irritated by a few posts, this is why:

• I think we would agree on most things.
• I think there are some people here how can act superior.
• I think we could all use a little more charity. That is always a good thing.
• But we also called to help our brothers and sisters to get to Heaven. If we see a person that is in serious sin, we have a moral duty to tell them. Of course it should be done with love, but done none the less.
• Acting morally superior, even in a nice way, like I think you have done here with your note to Shannyk drives me up the wall. You are falling into exactly what you are condemning.
• I also hate to see the Catholic name dragged through the mud. What you are complaining about is NOT a Catholic problem, it is a human problem.

I don’t know what kind of interaction you have with people of other faiths, but I work with churches all day every day. The majority of my work is with non-denominational pastors. I do a lot of work with a few of the major denominations as well. I can tell you from my work with these Pastors and these churches, a much larger number of these people act morally superior. They think they are the moral authority. They have NO problem telling a person they are wrong. This is also somewhat hypocritical considering that one of the biggest reasons they split from the Church was that they did not like the Pope being some kind of authority.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

You obvlisouly know the three requirements you have to have for a sin to be mortal. What the priest told you is wrong. It is possible for a person to know another person is in mortal sin. Not all of the time, but it happens all the time. You see people who know what they are doing is gravely wrong and the choose to do it anyway. Yes confession is a beautiful thing. When you go to confession, most priests will not tell you you are in mortal sin, even if you are. You can to confess that sin. If you confess and then they say “yeah your are in mortal sin”, unless you ask. People would not go back to confession. For many people, confession is hard and they feel vulnerable, they don’t need a priest to tell them how wrong they were after they confess.

I have to agree with this post and the others like it.

Most priests (in my experience) won’t tell you that you are in mortal sin unless you ask them and/or have an honest discussion with them about your sin(s).

People can make a good judgement on whether someone is in mortal sin or not. Otherwise, there would not be a need for confession - as everything would be venial for one reason or another.

I believe there are documents/guides for priests to help make these determinations. I just forget the name of the specific works…

 

[ac_claire]

Is this thread any different?

Yeah, exactly my thoughts. There’s a whole lot of “judgement” going around here.

 

[chevalier]

Nail. Head. Direct hit!

But I agree with your post; good post!

I agree. But to develop on that a bit.

Many people have difficulties understanding the, “love the sinner, hate the sin,” attitude. If you as much as criticise something they like doing, you criticise them personally and they feel unwelcome.

At the same time, it’s very hard for a believing, serious-about-things person to keep negativity at bay. This is something really difficult and very hard to overcome.

We can’t have a, “live and let live,” attitude when it comes to serious things which involve salvation, human life, human sexuality (which is connected to both life and salvation). The most we can do is not jumping to conclusions, not allowing one error to obfuscate the image of the whole person, even not judging–as judgement is not our job. We can notice the person’s problems, understand some motivations, understand when it’s error or despair rather than evilness or selfishness. And this we don’t do enough.

But on the other hand, refusal to lend any validity to opposing ideas (e.g. propositions that premarital sex is all right, or ABC is etc.) will be taken for superior act. Stricter moral standards also will (you move around believing people are doing wrong things, people don’t like that.

How many times do we hear we’re intolerant just because we won’t go along with something that’s trendy or something someone else simply enjoys doing?

 

[CradleCath]

I do find that many Catholics act superior…and I’m known as one of the more orthodox out of my friends!!!

I don’t find that to be the case. Most Catholics that I’ve known in my
60+ years within the faith are kind & understanding. Most seem to realize that, though they know another’s “action” may be sinful, that NO ONE can judge another’s heart. Actually, we can’t even know if another is in the state of sin…not a friend, a relative, a priest nor even the Pope can judge the state of another’s soul. We do not know the various thoughts & feelings that might make a person culpable or not culpable for a sinful action.

There are some who just won’t be happy until every Mass is in Latin, every woman covers her head, gives up college/a job and lets her husband rule her, every couple so blessed with fertility has nothing less than ten or twelve kids (because only the world exploding into a great ball of fire is a serious enough reason to use NFP), and every politician is a conservative Republican who may support war, bombs and torture and gives more tax breaks to the rich instead of the working poor but is still “pro-life”. There are extremists like that everywhere. They are not everyone on these boards and in real life, but they exist…

 

[StJudePray4Me]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread and conversations I’ve had with people about why they find some Catholic people “off-putting.” I sometimes think that some Catholics are just “Rules” people. And if you dig rules, Catholicism is a great faith! We’ve got lots of 'em!

I think there are people in the world who want and need rules, and others who see the rules as “guidelines.” The guidelines people struggle with hard and fast rules and, I think, can find Catholicism difficult. (I am talking about rules like no meat on Friday, or what time a Mass has to be on a Saturday in order to fulfill the Sunday obligation. Rules like ABC, NFP, etc are even more difficult and loaded subjects, and not what I am referring to).

I think that an excessively critical Catholic may be someone who likes objective rules and feels that they are an easy instructional manual for living life. If you follow these rules, you are a “real” Catholic, if you don’t, you are a Cafeteria Catholic. Simple, black-and-white.

When they come into contact with someone who perhaps:

1. Doesn’t know the rules, or
2. Wants to understand the rules and the reasoning behind them before following them, or
3. Has misunderstood the rules, or
4. Knows the rules but struggles with following them

the Rule follower struggles to have any real empathy for that person. There’s a disconnect, like, “Well, I follow the rules, why can’t you?” I think it comes off as being holier-than-thou.

Others who do struggle with the rules can look at the same person and give them encouragement.

I personally become frustrated with individuals who live by the “Letter of the Law” but seem to have lost the “Spirit of the Law.”

 

[CradleCath]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread and conversations I’ve had with people about why they find some Catholic people “off-putting.” I sometimes think that some Catholics are just “Rules” people. And if you dig rules, Catholicism is a great faith! We’ve got lots of 'em!

Wouldn’t that be NICE. Everything so black & so white…As long as I follow the rules, I’ll be fine. Too bad that life doesn’t work out to be black & white. Those horrible shades of gray just keep coming at us.

Using ABC. is a grave sin…but, the woman is bent down from having 6 children in 10 years. Would it still be a mortal sin for THAT woman???

A man had an affair, simply because another woman was **nice **to him, didn’t ‘run him down’ like his wife did, didn’t try to manipulate & use him, etc., etc. In a situation like that, is he committing the same sin that the womanizer, who has an affair with a different gal every six months??

Yeah, it would be nice if all were so simple…just follow the rules & you’ll have an automatic ticket to heaven. The truth is that life isn’t so black & white. As I said in my previous post…NO ONE can know the state of another’s soul.

 

[Alexander_Smith]

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?

Part of what separates a Catholic from a Protestant is that we (hopefully) look deeply at what we believe, and work logically through those beliefes. NFP, ABC, modesty, marital problems, these are all touchy subjects, and people will be offended no matter how you put it. But these are also things that need to be discussed, and realizing that will help make better Catholics.

 

[ac_claire]

I think there are people in the world who want and need rules, and others who see the rules as “guidelines.” The guidelines people struggle with hard and fast rules and, I think, can find Catholicism difficult. (I am talking about rules like no meat on Friday, or what time a Mass has to be on a Saturday in order to fulfill the Sunday obligation. Rules like ABC, NFP, etc are even more difficult and loaded subjects, and not what I am referring to).

I think that an excessively critical Catholic may be someone who likes objective rules and feels that they are an easy instructional manual for living life. If you follow these rules, you are a “real” Catholic, if you don’t, you are a Cafeteria Catholic. Simple, black-and-white.

Unless I’m misunderstanding you, I don’t think that’s quite fair. I have never heard the term Cafeteria Catholic applied to people who “pick and choose” the rules they will follow such as eating meat on Friday, what time vigil Masses should start, which Mass (OF or EF) one should attend, etc. Cafeteria Catholic is a pretty serious accusation, validated by at least one pope, that has to do with picking and choosing which actual rules and laws of the Church you’re going to follow (as opposed to preferences and disciplines, etc.)

I personally become frustrated with individuals who live by the “Letter of the Law” but seem to have lost the “Spirit of the Law.”

I can understand that. But like everything else in this thread, it goes both ways. I personally get frustrated when I am “judged” “uncharitably” to be living by the Letter of the Law in exclusion of the Spirit of the Law simply because I believe that we shuld all try to live according to both. And I believe that the Spirit of the Law on it’s own becomes ultimately meaningless when you lose sight of the Letter of the Law. (ie: “the spirit of Vatican II”, etc.)

 

[LilyM]

Wouldn’t that be NICE. Everything so black & so white…As long as I follow the rules, I’ll be fine. Too bad that life doesn’t work out to be black & white. Those horrible shades of gray just keep coming at us.

 

[gretahope]

Wouldn’t that be NICE. Everything so black & so white…As long as I follow the rules, I’ll be fine. Too bad that life doesn’t work out to be black & white. Those horrible shades of gray just keep coming at us.

 

[Podo2005]

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?

Simple Charity (Love) demands it. If I love you ( and I do) and care even the slightest bit about your eternal soul, how can I possibly stand back & be content with you ripping your soul ( & body…since you also brought up sins of the flesh) to pieces by your act of mortal sin? Also… how can you possibly know the motive of the person who brings up a particular issue? Suppose the person actually really does care?

I mean come on… its not like the treads start out like “A rant on masturbation…because I hate people who masturbate & am better than them”

Your brother in Christ,
Zachary

 

[Serap]

Simple Charity (Love) demands it. If I love you ( and I do) and care even the slightest bit about your eternal soul, how can I possibly stand back & be content with you ripping your soul ( & body…since you also brought up sins of the flesh) to pieces by your act of mortal sin? Also… how can you possibly know the motive of the person who brings up a particular issue? Suppose the person actually really does care?

I mean come on… its not like the treads start out like “A rant on masturbation…because I hate people who masturbate & am better than them”

Your brother in Christ,
Zachary

Your response above is not one made with LOVE, COMPASSION or KINDNESS. Re-read your post. You come across as arrogant, unkind and sarcastic.

This is exactly what I mean. We should work harder to come across like we DO love eachother; not putting eachother down or being sarcastic.

Your message is great, but the way you are saying it lacks charity and people need to work on this on CAF if we want to truly bring people to Christ.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Your response above is not one made with LOVE, COMPASSION or KINDNESS. Re-read your post. You come across as arrogant, unkind and sarcastic.

This is exactly what I mean. We should work harder to come across like we DO love eachother; not putting eachother down or being sarcastic.

Your message is great, but the way you are saying it lacks charity and people need to work on this on CAF if we want to truly bring people to Christ.

I read his post a few times. I just don’t see your POV. I didn’t see a lack of charity…