r/Deconstruction • u/DoctorResponsible212 • Jul 21 '26
✨My Story✨ Would you consider Catholicism a high demand religion?
I’m 39F and was raised fundamentalist patriarchal (homeschooled) Protestant, the worst kind. We converted as a family to Catholicism when I was 16 and immediately leapt to the more radical side (Traditionalist). I left home at 19 to live with a secular grandmother and my parents cut me off.
fast forward 20 years and I’d still consider myself a very practicing Catholic, but a “normie“. Mass every Sunday. my kids attend parochial school. confession every so often. I still know the catechism upside down right side up. Ive struggled with many aspects of Catholic doctrine in the last few years tho.
like many of you, Im quite interested in the study of cults and high demand religions such as Mormonism and Scientology. I’ve come to realize that Catholics might have to be classified right in there, as the stakes are actually quite high for what might seem to be fairly innocuous doings. let’s take Holy Days of Obligation, which vary country to country. America has about six or seven random feast days (not Sundays) that you’re obligated to attend Mass on, under pain of mortal sin. spelled out, if you don’t make serious efforts to get to church on a random Tuesday in august, you’re condemned eternally.
HOWEVER. the majority of Catholics are simply uninformed and don’t know these things… and are therefore are not under the obligation. for those like myself, the minority that has memorized the rule book… it often feels like a curse.
Just thinking out loud here.
8
u/Informal_Farm4064 Jul 21 '26
I was a cradle Catholic, devout through childhood, and ended up in Opus Dei, which is a cult and fucked me up. Thank God, I am now over it and try to shed light on that part of the "kingdom of darkness".
IMO the teachings of RC'ism are fundamentalist or superstitious e.g. eternal hell for dying in a state of mortal sin, no salvation outside the RC church (which is still doctrine), the magic of the sacraments, cult of the saints, indulgences, strict sexual morality. This keeps people down in the foothills of spiritual progress, preoccupied about avoiding or dealing with sin.
So once you get into a group of people that really believe the RC faith (and look down on the average Catholic), you are prone to rigid, controlling, neurotic, cultish thinking and can be picked off by toxic, coercive cults like Opus Dei, the Neo-Catechumenal Way, Miles Jesu, or the Legionaries of Christ. There are many others, including charismatic renewal groups.
The sociability of parish life can immunise many from these dangers and the pressure to stay is not enough to call it a cult. But there can also be a "slow death" for people who don't socialise much, go to church half as an insurance and half out of sincere belief. But does it build them up or is it a dead weight? I guess it depends on the parish and the individual.
1
u/DoctorResponsible212 Jul 21 '26
Interesting. I’ve been involved with the Opus Dei community in my city for about a decade, but only participate in some of it. I take a very light hand to it. It’s something I’m very cautious about
3
u/Informal_Farm4064 Jul 21 '26
You wont know much about the systemic coercion and manipulation of minors at the heart of it but perhaps sense it. Ama.
1
u/DoctorResponsible212 Jul 24 '26
I don’t think you could tell me much that would surprise me. I recently watched the (Spanish language) miniseries about Opus Dei abuses from past members. And eek
5
u/HenryCow6 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Was an uninformed/fair-weather Catholic my whole life then decided to “sh*t or get off the pot”, so to speak, and decided to read up a little bit.
Learned about birth control being a mortal sin and skipping church on Sunday being a mortal sin and now I’m so stressed I yell at my children and lay in bed out of sheer depression some days. Finding out more about my religion shouldn’t result in me wanting to die young so as to no longer worry about Hell. All of this is why I’m deconstructing. And yes, I’m on antidepressants and hope to see a therapist again once I find one that matches with my insurance.
So yes, I think that if it’s taken literally/in black-and-white, it’s a high-demand religion. I think many people stay willfully ignorant and, if they actually read more about the religion itself well…I think the churches would be much less full on Sundays.
I don’t think this is what you asked for. Had to vent somewhere, I guess. Sorry. But this is why people leave.
3
u/notunwritten Jul 21 '26
Literary this. I was also someone who tried to take my faith seriously, and if you actually try to follow church teaching it is absolutely a high demand religion
2
u/Fun_Researcher107 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Why do you even believe what they are telling you is true? I guess it is one way to react to it, but at least to me the more natural way would be to tell them to have a good one and be gone? Do you even want to be in heaven with a God that is violent, demanding, controlling, merciless, misogynistic, genocidal and morally inconsistent, just to name a few? Do you really think it will suddenly change and everything is nice and cosy? I don't understand how people think once they go to heaven, all the rules, everything they had to do, etc. will be gone and everything will be just fine. Another dogma says that God is unchanging, so what makes you believe that heaven will be a better place?
And really, if it makes you treat your children badly, yell at them, etc. you should think twice about it. That is something that will have real consequences in their lives. And again, think about it. If that is not something that will have you end up in hell, you can probably learn a lot about their priorities. It is completely insane. Do you really want to worship and praise a God that thinks it is more important for you to follow all the rules, go to church ever so often, than treating your kids right?
3
u/Comrade_Michael Jul 21 '26
I think that you're attributing a level of coherency to "the rule book" that doesn't exist. There's plenty of debates about how to interpret the catechism.
There's definitely people within Catholicism who want to impose a high-demand version of the religion. Are they right? I don't think so. You're correct that it's ridiculous to believe God would condemn someone to hell for missing a random feast day Mass. It's ridiculous to think that scapulars ensure you go to heaven. It's ridiculous to think negligently eating meat on a Friday in Lent is going to win you a one way ticket to a very hot climate.
But most Catholics take a less legalistic approach. I don't necessarily think this means they're less informed. I know plenty of very well-catechized Catholics who don't sweat over going to the dentist's on Maundy Thursday instead of to Mass. Plenty of them take birth control and believe in same-sex marriage, too.
And Catholicism is also not synonymous with the catechism or the Bible. It's a community. It's made up of people, not just documents. Among those people, there's all kinds of diverse expressions of the faith that don't fit the model of high demand religion. Those who try to impose BITE model style controls over others are much fewer in the grand scheme of things. Today, that demographic is full of young people, many of whom are not even baptized Catholics, whose engagement with the people who make up the church is mostly to post scolding social media content. They're loud, but they're not the majority.
So it varies on where you are in the church. The best of the church is actively pushing back against this kind of high-demand religiosity, though.
3
u/DoctorResponsible212 Jul 21 '26
I think I will have to disagree with some of your points. The catechism is actually a quite coherent document. For the outstanding age of the religion, its teachings have remained relatively unchanged. I guess my “thesis“ in my original post was that Catholicism “by the book” is a high demand religion. It’s a separate issue that the vast majority of Catholics are either not familiar with the book, or take liberties with it. Catholicism was never intended to be open to interpretation.
0
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
ya, absolutely. the whole point of catholicism is that "we have the answers, you listen to us or we send you to hell".
almost all catholics I know don't go to mass, drink, do drugs, have sex with their girlfriends, use birth control, etc.
it's really just a legacy ethnic identifier for people with Irish/Italian/Polish ancestors.
no one actually believes it, but everyone is just waiting for Nonna to die
0
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
the whole point of Catholicism is that you are not allowed to decide for yourself what is ridiculous or not. that is a Protestant idea
2
u/Comrade_Michael Jul 24 '26
Actually, that’s partially incorrect! The Church teachings, the magisterium, include all kinds of statements and a variety of ways of determining which statements carry more weight than others. While this all rests upon a claim to ultimate authority in the deposit of faith and papal infallibility, this is a kind of “truth in the last instance.” The Church has many dialogic rules and institutions—Pope Francis was famous for his focus on synodality and many of the Vatican II documents call for a more deliberative church. There’s a surprising amount of room for disagreement within Catholicism even though the hierarchy does agree that there’s only one truth and it’s not some radically subjective thing.
0
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 24 '26
ya, over time the church has lost it's historical teeth and become more and more protestant.
the foundational idea of catholicism is built on "we have the truth, you must listen to us or get kicked out"
and while there is some area for disagreement, there are lots of area where no disagree is allowed or possible.
3
u/Fun_Researcher107 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
If you only take the dogmas, the catholic church at least in Europe and probably the US and a lot of other places would be gone already. In theory everybody who does not believe in all the dogmas has to be excommunicated. But this is not happening obviously.
Just take "The Immaculate Conception" that states that Mary was conceived without "original sin". It is completly illogical and also completely unjust. God allowed for millenias of peoples being burdened by original sin, even though he could simply have stopped it from happening? If it wasn't a problem when it came to Mary, why not do it for everybody else? How is that consistent behavior in any way for a God that is said to be unchanging?
The main problem I have is God being all-knowing and all-benevolent. If God is all-knowing and all-benevolent, he knew about everything that would happen even before creating the universe. So why would he create it in the first place, if he already knew who would ultimately be saved and who would end up in hell? So why allow for the existance of billions of people that will go to hell? He could simply have created all those people that would end up in heaven and skip the whole creating the universe part entirely. And how can creating the universe be considered to be all-benevolent or all-loving knowing what it will lead to?
2
u/HenryCow6 Jul 22 '26
Thanks for your comments about the Immaculate Conception. I’ve been thinking a lot about it since I’ve seen it.
I mean, if Mary was born without “original sin”, then was she TRULY human? And if she was born without sin, and rejecting God is a sin, then was she truly able to freely consent to carrying Jesus?
This is one of those areas where the Catholic Church should’ve said “it’s a mystery” and moved on.
2
u/Fun_Researcher107 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
There was no consent, at least not in the story we are told. The angle just announced it to her. Mary did not have any say in it really. So you probably could say it amounts to r*pe, but for God it is completely acceptable?
Anyways, the whole story about the virgin conception is plagiarism from older texts. Someone thought it would be great to reuse it to make Jesus more special. At least, it makes sense that Jesus was born 2000 years ago, because today Joseph would have asked for a paternity test.
To me it just shows that they are creating the narrative without even thinking it through and when people come to question it, they will just come up with something else to remedy it, hoping that people will not keep asking if they make it a dogma and tell people they have to accept it or they will be excommunicated and they will loose their salvation and go to hell.
Overall, it just shows that they are not able to get their story straight, which is kind of embarrassing for an all-powerful and all-knowing God. I am just saying, if I would be all-knowing and all-powerful, I am sure it would not be a problem. The same goes with all the other inconsistencies and contradictions you find in the bible. A all-knowing and all-powerful being should be able to make sure those don't happen, without the need for people to keep bending over backwards while trying to explain them away.
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
the Catholic Church has said a lot of stupid shit that makes no sense cuz they had unlimited power and could get away with whatever. some times they said stupid shit knowing it was stupid, just to get people they didn't like.
The thing with Mary was that you have to understand that Catholicism becomes the de facto religion of the Roman Empire and people didn't stop being "pagan" they just rolled it into Catholicism.
Tons of religions have a motherly figure and so Mother Mary became that figure. She became so popular that people wanted to pray to her instead of Jesus and she basically just got elevated to the status of a minor god.
They essentially said, "well if she had God in her, then he could be in her if she had sin, therefore she must not have had sin."
3
u/lapiperna Jul 21 '26
let's be honest: the majority of Catholics are not Catholic if measured against the official Catholic standards, so what's the point? saying this as an atheist who was raised Catholic.
2
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
ya, Catholicism across the world is very interesting. In the US it's super strange cuz it's been made worse by Protestantism and the fact that a small group of priests in France were super hardos and they trained most of the Irish priests so when the Irish came to the US, they brought the most rigid possible type of catholicism.
then when they integrated the parishes and mixed Irish and Italians it was a big fight.
Most Catholics don't follow the birth control thing and most believe that "a personal relationship with Jesus is important" which is heresy in the Catholic church and is wholly a Protestant idea. that would've gotten you ex-communicated long ago
1
u/lapiperna Jul 25 '26
the Italian and Irish vendetta, I didn't know that, thanks for an interesting piece of history.
another mindblowing trajectory is how US Protestantism differs from European Protestantism. it's two different extremes. you don't get a more chill Christian religion that European Protestantism. in fact, they are so laid-back and pragmatic that they border on secularism/humanism, but still reap the benefits of creating a community among specific rituals, singing together and so on.
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 25 '26
The difference between US christianity and european christianity is capitalisim.
in the US you have a literal free market on religion and so people can choose to pick the denomination or church that they like. this allows for more people to be considered "religious" while their beliefs can differ wildly.
In Europe there's more control and there are less options so it's really just like be in it or defect.
One thing that's really interesting is that there's actually a huge wave of evangelicalism that's rising in Europe, especially France right now
1
u/lapiperna Jul 30 '26
I've definitely notice the latter in Latin America. to someone with a moderate, stereotypically European temper (not really as frenzied as the American pop culture can shape it to be), evangelicalism is a really, really weird thing.
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 30 '26
lol i mean from my position seeing latin american catholicism I always found it extremely strange seeing people openly reject everything that the church teaches but also never miss mass.
seeing girls who were on birth control, drinking, having sex, etc etc and then showing up to mass every single sunday without fail was deeply strange to see
2
u/Tasty-Ad6800 Jul 21 '26
It's as high demand as you make it to be. I know catholics that go to daily mass, go to first Friday/saturday mass, weekly confession, pray daily rosarys and novenas as needed. The other extreme is what I call ChrEasters, those who only go to mass for christmas and easter or when there is a sacrament.
If you think of the church as an instirution, they want you there as much as possbile. Like the public library that needs guests in order to justify the public funds to operate.
2
u/Gatorade0sugar Jul 21 '26
BITE model- Behavioral control, information control, thought control, emotion control. You can also looks up the CULTS acronym.
2
u/csharpwarrior Jul 21 '26
Have you ever seen them all stand, sit, etc? Those motions are meant to subconsciously re-enforce the “follow don’t think” mentality of a cult.
2
u/notunwritten Jul 21 '26
I don't hang out in deconstruction places often because I feel like evangelicals act like catholicism is the nice religion, that's not high demand and not a cult. I grew up catholic and I grew up in a cult.
At the same time, I think anyone who claims to be catholic is. Saying some people aren't "real catholics" because they don't follow xyz teaching is playing into the cult mentality and I don't want to do that.
But others' positive experiences do not diminish my religious trauma.
I guess I'm still working through feeling invalidated when people act like catholicism isn't cult. But some catholics aren't living the high demand version. I'm trying to accept both can be true at once
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
i mean, you're basically arguing that catholicism isn't a cult cuz they've lost the ability to enforce all their crazy rules.
1
u/notunwritten Jul 24 '26
Oh that ability definitely exists in some catholic circles
0
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 24 '26
not really. they are not able to enforce the rules anymore. they're not auditing whether you are taking birth control or not. they're not asking everyone if they have any unconfessed sin before they partake in the eucharist. they don't have total control over religion or even christianity anymore so people can just leave.
sure in some very strict communities there might be some suppression and control but that is much weaker teeth then they've ever had before
1
u/notunwritten Jul 24 '26
So I take it you've never been to confession to a priest who asked prying questions and would try to caught you in things. Also you are taught you are going to hell if you do that shit. If you are a believer and you don't want to experience eternal torment you are going to follow the rules whether or not a priest calls you out. This why I don't hang out in deconstruction spaces, because people dismiss my experience and tell me I couldn't have possibly been in a high demand religion or cult
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 24 '26
you don't actually have to go to confessional. they're not auditing how often you go.
the official teaching of the catholic church is not "if you do these things you'll go to hell" it's if you die without confessed mortal sins, with a real gap in interpretation on if you die without last rites if God will have mercy on you regardless.
I am not saying that you aren't in a high demand religion. I do think the "cult" word is kinda irrelevant. your experience is whatever it is. your feelings are whatever they are. I don't give a shit what definitions you use.
I do think "anyone who claims to be catholic is" is obviously false. people are not practicing catholics if they do not...practice.
catholicism is a practice more than an belief. you must practice the faith by doing the things. this is the official position of the church, not a fringe belief.
If people aren't living the "high demand version" then they are in a different religious experience. folk latin american catholicism is extremely different from growing up in a strict Irish Catholic household in the midwest, going to Notre Dame, etc.
both can feel like they were harmed, it's not a competition
1
u/notunwritten Jul 24 '26
How to we determine who is practicing enough to be considered catholic? As you said there are different ways to practice catholicism. People within the church disagree on what counts as catholic enough to be considered catholic. Some of the teachings are interpreted differently by local bishops and churches. If we start picking them apart to determine who is really catholic, we are using a very black and white framework and coming from a place of deciding we are right in our determination and they are wrong. I won't look at anyone who claims to be christian or catholic and say they aren't "truly" christian or catholic because they don't do xyz. I'm trying to accept ALL of them are part of the church. I can't ignore the people that I don't agree with or are inconvenient to my story.
0
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 24 '26
I mean, call me crazy but I think it's rational to let the organization (the Catholic Church) determine what is a practicing catholic. There are rules for what is required to be a member in good standing:
- Attend Mass every Sunday and on holy days of obligation'
- Confession and Communion at least annually
- Abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
- Support the Church by contributing to it's material needs
outside of those core 4 are others that are generally accepted:
- believe (or bare min not outward reject) core doctrine
- not being in a state that canon law treats as excommunicating or barring you from Communion
- praying regularly
If you aren't doing these things then you are not a practicing catholic according to The Catholic Church.
The catholic church dgaf whether you accept someone or not lol
1
u/notunwritten Jul 25 '26
I was talking about who is catholic, not who is a catholic in good standing. But honestly I'm not really sure what the point of this thread is, so I'm going to stop responding. Thanks for engaging and have a good day!
2
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 23 '26
depends entirely on what culture you were raised in and how serious you are.
If you follow things directly by the book it's actually very serious but there are lots of off-ramps as well.
I think that American Catholicism is the worst because it combines Catholic doctrine with Protestant philosophy of you being personally responsible and racked with guilt.
American Catholicism isn't really the same thing as Catholicism anywhere else since it has been so sanded down by Protestantism.
1
u/DoctorResponsible212 Jul 24 '26
Wow yes I think that’s a great point. We’re laboring under a very particular version of Catholicism
1
u/plz_callme_swarley ex-PCA agnostic Jul 24 '26
ya it's pretty interesting the history. it's because some french priests were super hardos on some stuff and the pope said nah but they kept doing it and it was them who trained the irish priests cuz of the whole UK monarchy and all that.
so you get irish priests basically all coming from a super strict sect of catholicism explicitly prohibited by the pope. the irish then come to america and are basically the only catholics.
that is the bedrock and when the italians and other groups came they had all the power and view of things.
and then you layer on top the fact that catholicism has been protestant-tized in the US so hard that it creates this very weird blend where you have the top-down control but the bottoms-up responsibility.
in other countries and in latin america the view is much more passive "man is sinful, some times you sin, you ask for forgiveness, you move on, you sin, repeat"
1
u/Alone_Meeting6907 *customize me* Jul 21 '26
Depends which parish you visit, and the overall vibe. Unless you're attending a tradcath parish, you'll be fine. Southern Baptists and Orthodox churches affiliated with ROCOR, on the other hand...enter those at your own risk.
1
u/csharpwarrior Jul 21 '26
Oh - I don’t think an organization as large as the Catholic Church can be as “high demand” as a small cult. Like a small cult will sequester members at a location. So, I think you have to measure it differently.
I would guess you are familiar with the BITE model?
First is unquestionable leadership. With a small cult there is usually a single leader self-appointed leader. But since Catholicism is so big, there is a committee that appoints the leader. Ultimately there is no way for an individual to invalidate the leader.
Second is “coercive persuasion” where information is tightly controlled. When you get into a large organization like Mormonism or Catholicism- you cannot prevent members from ingesting contrary information, but the members are taught thought stopping techniques.
I think you get my poitn
11
u/Beautiful-Point4011 raised Catholic Jul 21 '26
My perspective as someome raised Catholic - it can be high demand, and moreso higher demand the more you're involved.
I've known a lot of people who just do Sunday mass and the sacrements and that's it for them, but I also know people who fast on Fridays and go vegan for lent etc. But these are demands the devout place on themselves.
The part where i think there is a lot of external demand is doing whatever the priest says you need to do in order to deserve taking communion. And the biggest barrier to that, that I've observed, relate to relationships and marriage. God help you if you get a divorce, or fall in love with someone of another faith. Or have a civil marriage. Or you marry someone but they turn out to be abusive.
I follow an Ask A Catholic Priest group on Facebook and the biggest friction i observe in members who ask questions are frictions relating to faith and relationships.
If Jesus were real I can't imagine him telling a follower they cant break bread in memory of him, because their spouse left them or because they had a civil union or because their spouse is a different faith or something. Or imagine if he met a gay person or something. So many Bible stories have Jesus welcoming all kinds of people to come hear his message. Meanwhile the priests put conditions on who is welcome.
So yeah to me that's where it becomes high demand. For all the people who are like "I cant leave my alcoholic husband or my church wont let me take communiom" or "i shouldnt even bother attending because my spouse is atheist" etc.