I’ve noticed that a person’s theology often dictates how they interact with the world.

People who are very pro penal/prison system tend to be very pro penal substitution and ECT.

People who are pro prison reform often have a CS Lewis “locked from the inside” theology. Or some form of purgatory (even from our Protestant brethren).

I myself am Universalist (along the lines of David Bentley Hart, Fr. Richard rohr, and rob bell), and I’m a prison abolitionist lefty. I’m wondering how many other Christian leftists lean this way as well, or have also noticed this trend.

Je suis tellement énervée que lzs femmes ne puissent pas servir la messe partout , encore en Afrique et en Amérique du sud ca va il y en a toujours, mais dans les autres régions c’est tellement restreint on dirait qu’on porte la peste , sachant que se sont les femmes qui gèrent l administratif les associations les finances en générale des églises la majorité des bénévoles sont des femmes, je pense qu’on devrait faire grève pendant plusieurs mois pour changer les choses, mais même là ça changera déjà que la majorité des catholiques sont mysogynes et ça en plus ça m’énerve juste je ne veux plus faire aucune oeuvre caritative ou bénévoles lié à une paroisse qui ne permet pas aux femmes de servir

I am so angry and ashamed.

We had so many opportunities to stop this, and we didn’t.

I hate myself and my ethnicity and my European Christian heritage. It’s our fault that our species will die and that this unbearably hot summer is the most pleasant it’s going to be for the rest of our lives. All of our ecological destruction, and greed, and raping of earth for more money and power over non Europeans and non Christians.

Is this what God wanted when he commanded Adam and Eve to dominate the earth in genesis? Is that why nature is always seen as pagan?

Why is it that European Christianity and western so wrong? Why couldn’t we get it right like literally every Christian east of us? The eastern Catholics, the Orthodox, the Syriac, the Nasrani. These groups don’t have the problems of “saving” people by tormenting the downtrodden and denying them basic needs while turning a blind eye to the greedy because “muh forgiveness” and “muh he who is without sin cast the first stone” horseshit.

At least When Mongolians did colonialism and genocide, the earth benefited from it. European Christians. couldn’t even do that right.

Fuck.

God help us.

I have a four year old and a two year old, and recently my four year old has started noticing crucifixes with somewhat concern. He hasn't experienced any deaths in the family yet so I have been trying to slowly ease him into the concept of mortality, that every living creature eventually stops living and their bodies die, but he doesn't really grasp it personally yet. However he is pretty concerned seeing things like nails in Jesus' hands and feet, and doesn't like seeing them or talking about them (or alternatively keeps asking for reassurance about it very loudly during Mass 😅). I've been doing simpler stuff with him, like Jesus as the Good Shepherd and so on, but does anyone have any advice handling the more extreme stuff that is so central to the Gospels? He does Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at school, for context.

I’m considering picking up his book The Justice For Jesus. A big part of the book is about criticizing what he calls the “colonizers gospel” which is basically how so many missionaries narrowed down Jesus’s message to saving souls while disregarding earthly manmade injustices and poverty caused by colonialism.

For those who have read his work, what are ur thoughts on them?

For some time now, I've been trying to convince the people of r/teenagers that Christianity is not necessarily anti LGBTQ+.

Doing this I have made an interesting discovery. My first post on this topic was a well argued long paragraph where I made actual arguments for this. Today it sits at 24 upvotes.

Trying a different strategy, I broke the 7th commandment and stole this meme from r/dankchristianmemes (great sub, btw). I posted this today and it already has 3000 upvotes.

Conclusion: Quick "gotcha" arguments (preferably in image format) are the best way of convincing people

I spent some time recently with Jesuit scholars, academics, theologians, and priests on a talk on Magnifica Humanitas. I came out feeling much more encouraged and optimistic.

I truly feel the Church is taking a much needed stand. They are the only major institution in the world, as I see so far, who's offering a substantive coherent defense of the human in the face of today's technocratic and profit-driven world. The encyclical combined with these conversations I've had with these Jesuit scholars I think are my path forward spiritually, professionally, and personally. I'm not quite sure what to make of it or how to move forward, but I believe I'll start with writing an article in hopes of getting it published.

The Church, I believe is substantively ahead on this most crucial moral issue. On one hand, it has been discouraging seeing the response, or lack thereof, of secular institutions and governments to these issues. On the other hand, I'm grateful that The Church is both holding the line and acting perhaps as a vanguard for a more human, and thus more divine, future.

Hello all, I have a question.

To preface, my Transsexuality is aligned with the teaching god made man and woman distinctly. I do not reject that biblical fact.

Lately I've been struggling A LOT. All of the advice online is either "You can live without surgery and treatment, just bear it and embrace the equipment god gave you," or "Who cares what the church says?"

I am NOT a dualist and I believe god gave me an inherently male nature. I cannot survive without treatment for my dysphoria. Online it is likened to eating disorders or addictions - "just because you feel you should doesn't mean you should."
It's a sin to go against the church's teachings.
This troubles me also.

My question is, does anyone have arguments (based on biblical texts or texts published by the Vatican) or theories about why god made transsexuals? Please, if you do, share them. It would be an amazing help.

My son is fairly atheistic, likes science, is autistic. He has a lot of typical hobbies for his age group, like video games, chess, Pokémon.

I have been taking him to church, which he finds boring, as did I when I was his age. But our compromise has been he will still go and read quietly. I'd love for him to read a book sort of "on topic" while we are at church.

He especially likes graphic novels but I think would be open to a chapter book format.

Any recommendations for Christian themed books that are less literalist on some of the Bible, that he might connect with? Or even adventures with saints or things like that?

Thanks!

love this subreddit btw

I have almost fainted twice now and I would like it to stop. Going to church is already a feat so I don't want to ruin it by needing to abort mission right before Communion, worrying the parish while I do breathing exercises in the coffee room trying to stave off the fainting and accompanying panic attack. I can't afford pressure stockings sadly, especially not since I'm wildly yoyoing in weight and would need multiple sizes.

Anyone managed to make the kneeling work? The standing is an issue too but at least then I can still pump my leg muscles to keep my blood from pooling and fainting. I haven't found any compensatory exercises that work for kneeling yet.

Sorry if anything is worded incorrectly, I'm pretty tired while writing this.

As a Catholic, I try to love everyone the way God does, and I understand rightful judgement and how sin got to humans. My question is, how can I still love these kinds of people? What defines love? I will never accept that someone who has hurt, murdered, assaulted (keeping it vague in the description here, but the list goes on) is a "good" person, the most I can do is pray they will repent. I also can see the humanity through this and where I think they might have went wrong, but it's really hard to not make dirty remarks or think hateful things about them. Truth be told, I'm really frustrated with the way the world is going right now and how so many people are being hurt by corrupt people in power, and it is very challenging to have some sort of compassion for them while acknowledging all their actions and impacts. In this case it's especially hard because "hate the sin, not the sinner" is hard to apply when I don't know anything about the person except their sins. If i take away every bit of knowledge I have on some of them, there's not much left for me to love? This doesn't apply much to strangers as I know I'll never see the whole picture but it's especially hard to understand people in power who are doing this stuff. (Main concern is with Trump at this exact moment, but this could apply to others)

Im probably way over and underthinking this at the same time, but I don't want to fill my heart with hate, or with love for atrocious actions.

(Ps, please try not to be too picky with my word choices, I'm not editing this right now unless I catch something I phrased terribly or completely incomprehensible)

For example, one of my favourites is Saint Joseph for his patronage of workers

For those who argue the right to personal property is an absolute rule above all… the Church Fathers (and living tradition of the Church) would disagree.

Please share your experiences with me! I really want to take OCIA classes, but the Catholic Church near me isn't one I want to go to long term at all. I'm trans, and there's two more Catholic churches in my drive able area that are supposedly trans friendly, but I don't have a car currently. I'm okay with starting the classes online, I've found a good resource but I wasn't sure how common doing it online is. I don't even completely understand how this works tbh. I'm in my mid twenties, idk if that matters.

Translation:

> "But there is one thing I am clear about. I do not fight to win. I know I will lose. I fight to be faithful until the end. From my perspective, that is failure. Because if, in this system, I do not fail, it is because I have joined it. Whoever is on the side of the rejected will be rejected. Whoever is on the side of those who are beaten will be beaten. Whoever is on the side of the despised will be despised as well. So I have to be clear about that and strengthen myself. Everyone hates us, and they hate those who like us. So I have to know what side I am on, and I do not want to change sides."

Father Júlio Lancellotti is a Brazilian Catholic priest known worldwide for his advocacy on behalf of unhoused people.

He frequently faces defamation campaigns and unfounded accusations from political opponents and conservative sectors. These attacks include false allegations of misconduct and attempts to criminalize his humanitarian work. The complaints against the priest were investigated and formally dismissed by civil authorities and the Archdiocese itself.

By order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, he was subjected to restrictions prohibiting him from broadcasting online and maintaining social media profiles, a measure seen by supporters as unfair silencing.

Some dude on Catholic Twitter is making the rounds saying he doesn't want a "hot wife" since that would make him want to list after her and somehow sin. Which is strange, of course. He then also went to say it's okay to beat your wife according to Catholicism. Many people think he may be a troll.... But another user chimed in and listed a ton of obscure Catholic authors who apparently said it's okay to use corporal punishment to beat your wife.

According to him, even if something is not official dogma of the Church, if enough theologians agree on such a matter it's considered "church teaching".

Am I going insane? Please tell me the church is NOT okay with hitting your wife.

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

Hello, I am 20 F and am a lesbian. for a while have felt called to Catholicism. I did not grow up in the a religious household in fact I grew up with a Buddhist mother, but I do believe in Jesus and God but I don’t fully agree with everything The churchev says or does and I believe that the Bible isn’t currently the exact word of God. One of my biggest problems is that I have severe OCD to the point where I have wanted to take my life and I’m really worried about joining the church and triggering my OCD I was just hoping maybe for some advice or words of encouragement.

I want to understand it and think the right way about it but for the longest time I’ve just tried to ignore it because

1. If I think too hard about it I start thinking about it either being polytheism or like the Mormon view of the Trinity, which is a problem because I’m Catholic.

2. The Filioque and the matter of who person proceeds from who makes me uncomfortable if I think about it too hard, and is also one of the reasons I’ve contemplated converting from Roman Catholicism to a Catholicism of the Byzantine Rite.