#ex-Catholic

[winged-thinged]

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

[samkingsketches]

If you call me an abomination, I will look for comfort in your other monsters

[wishbow]

reliquary of St Valentine - pam wishbow 2021

[kings-speaks]

baptismal

my heart shivers when I walk into the old church with its drowning font and pews, the aisles gutters guiding tears from the weeping statues, tears from the dripping parishioners as dead as their emaciated lord strung up at the front.

once I knelt here and turned my heart out into this breathless air: my fault, my fault, my fault. the quiet music repeats and repeats the refrain: grief inside a mask of shame. once I wore that mask, the stone heavy but not yet cracked— once I sang that song, tasted it, rolling sweet across my tongue—

over the baptismal font looms the baptist. his face is alien but stern, his hand outstretched: an offering or a benediction? I grip his iron hand, and he helps me into the water. slowly, I sink down. the water swills around me: shed prayers and empty tears.

guilt is a cold vice.

when I try to rise again, that’s when I feel him. iron hands anoint my head. he holds me under. I try to scream, but all I taste is water. he holds me under he holds me under

[halestonehyena]

people really act like abandoning/rejecting christianity just means not believing in god and then not put in any effort to unlearn cultural christianity

[soihavesomethoughts]

"I believed in God as a kid bc I always felt so moved during worship songs at my megachurch and then I went to a One Direction concert and felt the same thing and realised I just like live music"

credit: likethabug (TiKTok)

[fromthemouthofkings]

talking about Christian homophobia is boring, I'm gonna start coming up with more and more silly lies about why i left the catholic church

"i'm gluten intolerant"

"i just really love eating meat and hate fasting"

"read too much Hildegard von Bingen and now I'm an animist :("

[kael-writ]

did any other ex-Catholics have an advent wreath growing up? I really loved it. We had it on the dining table. It has 3 purple and one pink candle and you light one a week, the pink one Xmas week.

(I specificed ex- because Im hoping no current Catholic strangers shall perceive me on internet).

[gods-favorite-second-child]

I read somewhere that being an ex-catholic is to be tainted and sinful, but now there's no one to forgive you. I think about that a lot.

[winged-thinged]

You have to let people love you. You have to let people get to know you. You have to let people help you. Being so completely selfless that you try to erase yourself off the face of the planet and never ask for anything and reject everybody's offers of support makes you very hard to love! Unfortunately. Emptying yourself out of everything that makes you, you is not actually what your loved ones want from you, generally. They want to make you happy! They will be so so sad if you don't give them the chance. It's not all selfish. I promise.

[giantkillerjack]

Adding "The only way to be a good person is to sacrifice absolutely as much of yourself and your own comfort as possible for other people all the time." (I grew up Catholic, in case that's not obvious.)

Things i learned as a child that probably no one intended to teach me

To grown-ups, being bad at stuff is a sin. Forgetting stuff is the worst sin of all, and also doesn’t exist - it is widely believed (and your behaviour will be interpreted thusly) that in some Freudian sense, it is impossible to forget things if you care about them or their consequences or the people who care about those things.

Your being happy and enjoying what you do doesn’t matter. All that matters is whether you are Fulfilling Your Potential.

Human beings do not require rest outside of sleep. Thinking that you do is called ‘being lazy’.

Who you show physical affection to is a matter of politeness and social protocol, and has nothing to do with your own desires

It is rude to inform people of your preferences, even if they seem to care about catering to them and therefore might find this useful information.

Etiquette centres around doing things in especially awkward, skilful and time-consuming ways in order to demonstrate superiority over people who aren’t able to keep up.

[apostate-in-an-alcove]

Oh damn the Catholics have joined in on the war against AI "art".

[headfullmanythots]

my mother takes me to church.

i watch as she looks for today's missal in the booklet,

listen as she sings the hymns

and says peace be with you to our neighbors.

i kneel,

not to pray,

but to watch as she does.

her lips mouth the words,

her hands steady as she makes the sign of the cross.

i don't believe in god.

i believe in my mother.

[a-hearts-a-heavy-burden]

Pfft, Y'all MUTHER FUCKERS need PAPA !!

There’s nothing funnier than American Trad Caths revealing that they’re just Presbyterians that think Baroque looks cool

[fromthemouthofkings]

did anyone else experience holy week/easter as one long guilt trip, or was that just my home church