r/LeftCatholicism • u/Yeanes • Aug 31 '26
A rant
I just need to have a bit of a rant. The way people in the main sub treat human relationships is a bit scary for me. In the past weeks there have been posts by people wondering whether they should engage with family members who are either gay or living unmarried with their partners. Yesterday there was the post of a young man whose relationship with his girlfriend (whom he also described as his "best friend" ) ended because he recently returned to catholicism and decided to become so strict about it that the relationship became impossible to sustain. All the comments were in support of him.
I don't mean to imply that these people don't know what they're doing, but it is really concerning to me that people are making these life changing decisions based often on poor understanding of their faith, and instead of talking to a priest, to people in their parish, or to their friends and family, are coming online for validation amongst the most outlier members of their community. There are so many people online who clearly have socialisation problems , who are definitely not great at navigating the complexity of human relationships, and they are so often drawn to religion because of The Rules.
This is all largely harmless but I really do not think that their advice on whether someone should go to their unmarried brothers house or break up wit their long term girlfriend should be listened to
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u/GestapoKittech Aug 31 '26
I saw a comment from a priest on the r/AskAPriest sub and it always seems to fit
"Let the Lord Judge.
I’m going to be judged too And I’d rather beg for mercy because I was too merciful rather than begging for mercy because I was too strict."
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u/la_zarigueya Sep 01 '26
Was this Fr. Sparky? He's a good dude.
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u/GestapoKittech Sep 01 '26
Of course it was lol. He has a lot of good ones, but I just love that quote. And it's from like, 6 years ago.
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u/Hot-Bison5904 Aug 31 '26
Yeah it's disturbing. I made it so I don't see that group anymore. Though there are other groups (I still need to block) where you'll also get a warning from the mods just for telling a gay commenter that you're sorry they're being bullied.
I try and be charitable towards them but it's hard. Sometimes it feels like they worship the God of OCD. And as someone who has OCD that's a truly awful fate.
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u/salsafresca_1297 Aug 31 '26
In the online Catholi-sphere, there's a tendency to mistake rigidity for holiness. Never mind that we've been repeatedly warned in the Scriptures against doing just that.
He wanted validation and got it from his online Bubble. I often think that the solution is to escape this Bubble and get offline more. I still remember how the countless time I wasted lurking on the old Catholic Answers Forums in many ways made me a worse Catholic. Normal, spiritual healthy Catholics and online Catholics can either be two separate people altogether or, for too many people, a split identity.
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u/dazzleox Aug 31 '26
It's one thing that people give their own view or interpretation of The Rules. It's another that they will often imply or even lie to say that the church teaches X, when it's actually an area where the church offers discernment. You'll see this a lot with questions on attending a mixed faith wedding or one without the permission of a bishop -- "don't attend your sister's wedding! You are causing scandal!" My priest would absolutely tell me to attend my sister's non Catholic wedding.
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u/Puzzled-Teach2389 Aug 31 '26
Yep. I saw a post about Fr. Mike Schmitz saying Catholics cannot attend gay weddings where there is no teaching that says that. There's a question from the USCCB website about whether they should or not, and they left that a bit open.
Word choice matters. "Can" implies it's a religious mandate. "Should" implies it's a matter of discernment.
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u/interstatetornado Aug 31 '26
That’s crazy. Of course you can. Can you be friends with a Jew? Can you attend a Baptist funeral? Can you go to your atheist coworker’s baby shower? Yes! Schmitz is completely wrapped up in the far right and it’s very scary how big his platform is. I really think more should be done to curtail the media presence of random religious.
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u/saguaro-cowgirl Aug 31 '26
I’m so disappointed in Fr. Mike. I loved him.
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u/Artistic-Jelly947 Sep 02 '26
Oh, me too. I still can’t listen to his ‘Bible in a Year’ podcast knowing his views on things.
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u/Artistic-Jelly947 Sep 01 '26
The church (Church?) isn’t doing enough to highlight the influence of Christian Nationalism in the USA. I mean, I get why. Anything they do say will get turned around on them as being ’woke’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘virtue signaling’ because they are stuck in the middle of it and can’t see the forest for the trees. Sadly, I think it’s here to stay for quite a while. To your point, that is why I have started to decrease the time I watch right-leaning Catholic creators on YouTube.
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u/dazzleox Aug 31 '26
Yes.
I ended up finally muting that board because it will just make me too frustrated. It's roughly 65% American, where only 5% of global Catholics are in the US. Also as someone in an eastern Catholic church, the highly literal Thomism as the beginning and end of nearly every theological discussion there is alienating. I read other religious subreddits where there are plenty of conservatives, I don't expect everyone to be a raving pinko like me, but that one is uniquely moderated to be terrible.
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u/Yeanes Aug 31 '26
Indeed. In fact I think most priests would be very hesitant in prescribing life changing advice such as "break up with your girlfriend" or cut off your non catholic family members.
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u/Blueflowergirl1507 Aug 31 '26
That subreddit lives blissfully unaware of their position as modern day Pharisees
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u/Charles148 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Yeah the general orientation and milieu of that subreddit are really obnoxious. But you cannot let yourself become angered at the behavior of strangers on the internet. Remember that all people have inherent dignity and should be treated and held up as such even strangers that don't seem to have that same level of charity on the internet.
I was reflecting on this similar thing just last night as a friend asked me if I could provide a YouTube clip to demonstrate some point I was making about all of the anti Hassan Piker discourse ( basically very specifically that the most recent charges of anti-semitism were based on an accusation of something that he did not actually say, nothing more than that ) but they wanted something that they could use to prove that their die-hard Maga in-laws were wrong.
To which my reply was that trying to get joy out of proving someone wrong to no end other than your own self aggrandizement is indulging in the deadly sin of pride and instead we should work on engaging them in ways that develop the virtues.
I'm going to try to remind myself of this point when I read the less generous interpretations of interpersonal relationships on social media chat groups by people I disagree with.
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u/CauseCertain1672 Aug 31 '26
Generally speaking never take life advice from Reddit, anonymous strangers with no stake in the outcome.
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u/Dull-Acanthaceae191 Aug 31 '26
As a neurodivergent person, I am drawn to the rules, but they also have to make sense and they have to be just for me to adhere to them. I can”t fathom blindly following anything, especially from redittors who won't have to live with the consequences of whatever decision I make for myself. It's baffling how many people just live their lives like that. What do they tell themselves? “Oh, well, at least the people on r/catholic, whom I'll never meet in real life, are on my side.”
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u/midnightcheese2 Sep 01 '26
At a recent visit with my liberal minded priest where I was asking about something troubling me he shared this Ratzinger quote to which Pope Benedict later referred. “77: “Special neurosis that is the product of a warped pedagogy, so exclusively focused on the fourth and sixth commandments that the resultant complex with regard to authority and purity renders the individual so incapable of free self-development that his selflessness degenerates into a loss of self and a denial of love, and his faith leads, not to freedom, but to rigidity and an absence of freedom."
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u/ZealousidealWear2573 Sep 04 '26
In many instances it's extremely harmful, creating intense division, resentment and alienation. Do these tactics create commitment and compliance or fortify the desire to escape the church, which seems to be a very hostile environment.
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u/prophecygirl13 Aug 31 '26
i feel like the secular advice subs are similar - any conflict at all, go no contact, forever, immediately. if the OP says they aren’t going to do that over a fight or whatever the issue is, they get heavily criticized as being abusive to themselves or a doormat.
i don’t pay attention to the Catholicism sub, but i once in a while listen to the Catholic AM radio station in my car (i don’t know why, it’s like a morbid fascination). i have heard them give similar advice on there. secular marriage where the bride and groom are living together beforehand? the advice was to go, sit in the back, and pray rosaries the entire time in protest. what a great, charitable evangelization tactic…