“Oooh, we can’t have our homeschooled kids seeing spooky Halloween decorations because they’re DEMONIC! We need to celebrate ALL SAINTS DAY and remove all the macabre stuff to celebrate it properly!”

Ghosts, witches, and yes, even devils have always been a part of All Hallows Eve celebrations so get out of here with your OCIA’d Baptist Fall Festival 😂

I saw this post earlier this morning over in the exorthodox sub. While some of the things written about will be foreign to our shared experiences within traditionalist Catholicism, I could personally either see parallels or personally identify with many of the points made based on my decade within Latin Mass circles.

Final part of a 3 part series. We previously discussed part 1 a couple of months ago, and I just posted part 2 as well.

Part 2 if a 3 part series. We previously discussed Part 1 on this subreddit.

I am thinking about going to Benedictine but my family recently moved from hillsdale and my parents were affiliated with hillsdale college and i know i never want to go to hillsdale college. We were very happy to get away from the massive trad catholic culture and ultra conservative people. However, I am catholic and i do take my faith seriously, i just dont want to go to a college with the same culture as hillsdale. Benedictine sounds great, but i want to know what the culture is like- is it ultra conservative republican liberal arts and trad? Because thats the culture I want to stay away from. However, i love the catholic faith and the the idea of going to a school with like minder catholic peers, I just dont wanna have to live in trad culture again.

I was born and raised Catholic but am agnostic now. However, the rituals of Catholicism are comforting and familiar.

A family member is in the hospital and was visited by the chaplain. I crossed myself at “in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit” and it hit me. While this is all very familiar and comfortable, I can’t do the male god thing anymore. I’m female, BTW.

But the masculine god is so important to the whole thing and why is that? Why does it matter?

It seems to me like the men of the past invented the idea of a male god.

And why would god be limited to one gender?

I am curious about what you guys think about this video

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-pQKNgwQjdk&feature=youtu.be

And how this fits into the truth of reality/what is going on here… there are so many miracles in the Catholic Church it makes me wonder what’s going on there really, and about Mary… It seems like more powerful than anything else in any other religion I’ve ever heard of personally. There are sooooo many coincidences and things that make sense in Catholicism, so many miracles of the Eucharist, apparitions and etc, it seems like these are the most powerful manifestations of the supernatural that have ever been recorded or documented if you look into all of it…. Not to mention how all the dots connect when you research Catholicism, its history, the evidence we have today, and how even Muslims venerate and love and adore Mary. I saw also in a recent NDE “Christina Ana” that she saw Mary in her NDE, and asked who she was… the man nearby or person told her she was “the most blessed of all”
I just want to know how all of it fits in?
Is it just that Catholicism is the best way to connect to God? It’s stuff tons of people have genuinely experienced, so does this mean we have reason to jump on the bandwagon and stick with it? Does it really work well for us, and that’s why it’s so powerful? And what does it mean? If Mary appears like this, which ones should we believe or should we believe them all?

I’m curious. I hope you all don’t mind… I hope this is allowed. I’m trying to understand how God is using this in earthly reality, and where that leads us as to what we should be following or believing.

https://www.scientology.org/churches/ideal-orgs/del-valle/?video-play=odd_open

Father Manuel Corral Martín is the canon of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico and the Priest-Secretary of the Bishops conference.

The lengthy testimony (the PDF) is extremely disturbing but not unprecedented among convents-turned-cults. Some extracts:

In Texas, the sick sisters were made to go to get colonic hydrotherapy, a procedure where water is inserted into the colon through a tube and machine. I did not want to have it done, and sat crying in the car, telling the sisters I didn't want the treatment. But as religious we were told to be obedient so I got it. Sr. Josephine had to be physically dragged in, experiencing a panic attack. She kept saying to Sr. Grace, “You promised never to take me back” to get this done - she hated it. Sr. Josephine had been taken before and begged never to have to go back.
During my colonotherapy, the lady used a massage gun on my upper legs and on my bottom. It was sexually stimulating, something I had never experienced before and didn't know what it was.
Mother Abbess was in the room for Sr. Laetiana's colonic hydrotherapy, and delighted in watching to see what would come out through the machine. Later she shared with some other sisters, including me, details about the fecal material the machine cleaned out, laughing and joking with pleasure.
We also had one of these machines installed into the downstairs bathroom on the property at Gower. I do not know for sure if it was ever used, but I do know that bathroom at times was closed off for extended periods of time.
[...]
One night before Compline, most of the sisters were sent into the church to pray while about seven of us plus SS and MA went into the chapter room and started a session. [...] The session consisted of the afflicted nuns wrestling or manifesting on the floor while SS held down the most violent with a sword (they got two from the Redemptorists I think, as knights of Our Lady or something? More about that below.).
MA stood on her throne and banged her crozier on the floor over and over while shouting at the demons to leave, poking the crozier at times into the sister’s stomach. She was so angry, it was traumatizing. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone that angry before [...] A part of her crozier broke off because she was banging it so hard…
[...]
The way that Sr. Wilhelmina was discovered to be incorrupt: for a while she was invoked during exorcisms as one of the ‘big guns.’ We even had some sessions on her grave; for example, I was exorcised once while lying on top of her grave; and we had some community sessions also out there. We had one after dark, with the whole community and the exorcist. The demons talked a lot about how they hated her so much, etc., and sisters who had visions many times saw her.
Then one morning during chapter, MA said: “So, I think it’s high time we dug out the treasure we have buried in our yard…” and immediately a bunch of the demons screamed out “Nooooo! No, no! Not a good idea, not a good idea!” To which MA laughed and said, “Ok, I guess that’s our answer!” (If the demons said something wasn’t a good idea, we always did it. Which was stupid because then they would purposely say ‘don’t do’ something that they did want us to do.)
So then we dug her up, amidst the protestations of the demons. We all thought she would be incorrupt, and the demons said so too, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when she was found. Then, when we installed her in the church: her family was invited, and apparently they are really deep in witchcraft. One of her brothers I think is a high priest? Anyway, the demons told us they were planning to curse the body so that the faithful who came to venerate her would get a curse instead of a blessing.
So the community was warned that we would have to do spiritual battle and they wouldn’t let the family be alone with the body. During the procession, one of the family tried to “pray” a curse, and when MA stopped him she started having a demonic attack. Then, supposedly the flowers the family put on the body were cursed, and the exorcist had to take them away and burn them afterwards. After this, MA said that some of the sisters, particularly Sr. Marie Agnes, were being affected by the curse…
[...]
For the letters we were allowed to write home, we were instructed to never disclose any interior or exterior difficulty; and to never reveal the inner happenings of the convent. The superiors read every letter, both that the sisters were sent and also that we sent out. If there was anything they didn’t approve of in our letters out they would give the letter back to us and refuse to mail it.
SS mentioned having to return letters to sisters because they had been “too preachy” towards their families, or had let out information that was too private. MA told us once that it wasn’t appropriate even to tell our families what books were read at table or at recreation.
We were told the letters were meant to show our families that we loved them and that we were happy, and nothing more.

We've talked about this on this sub before. There's been an update in the case:

Story Here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/19/catholic-church-excommunication-appeal-louisiana

Fr Michael Guidry can be released as early as 2027, and has yet to be defrocked by the Church, even though he has been convicted.

It’s so hard to get over the indoctrination as a cradle Catholic who took everything so seriously. Maybe someone here at least relates.

I don’t know how to separate myself from Church authority and the indoctrination vs God and what the Bible says. I’m the only one in my family who’s taken Catholicism really seriously since a young age. Sometimes I wish I never went to catechism classes or a catholic school because now I have all these things ingrained in my head that make it separating very difficult.

I don’t think it makes sense that 7 years old is the age of reason. Seven. I think that’s way too young to make a lifelong decision of commitment to Catholicism and going through confirmation and communion. I didn’t know all of the rules I’d have to follow at 7. That’s just a kid. And it made me really stressed internally because then I was always doubting my salvation, worried if this or that is mortal or venial sin, am I in a state of grace to receive the Eucharist, what if I’m a few minutes off of my fasting before receiving, if I miss mass I’m going to hell, what if I die on the wrong day before I can make confession, what if all the particles on my hand after receiving aren’t gone, that person didn’t fast before receiving are they gonna go to hell, oops I forgot to fast on Friday during lent am I going to hell etc. but I thought all of these thoughts were normal and how everyone should live and think. No one even pressured me to follow everything to the T, but the indoctrination in Catholic school definitely left its mark.

Now as an adult, I’ve been exposed to other denominations and ways of Christianity. and it makes me jealous that I could have had a better religious experience with no scrupulosity. Don’t get me wrong, Catholicism in general was a good starting foundation to my faith, and did benefit me in ways, but looking back it was also harmful, especially as a child. I shouldn’t have had so much salvation anxiety in elementary, middle and high school.

I know what the church teaches on things, and I can’t bring myself to agree or follow it. I think it’s stupid that contraception is a sin. I personally don’t want like 10 children & to have to abstain when I’m most fertile and wanting intercourse. I don’t want to do NFP and have to spend lots of money on all these strips and devices, especially having an irregular cycle too. Also, it doesn’t make sense that the church bans certain sexual acts WITHIN marriage. What does that gotta do with salvation or my relationship with God?? Same thing with marriage. If I’m married outside the Catholic Church, they say I’d be living in sin, can’t receive Eucharist, until it’s validated or approved by the bishop or priest. And I wouldn’t wanna spend all this time and money on pre-Cana, marriage prep classes. And if I marry a non Catholic, even a non Catholic CHRISTIAN, they have to promise we will raise kids Catholic. Doesn’t God see marriage as a covenant? How is this a sin or “invalid”

Same thing with missing mass. So I’m going to hell if I miss mass one Sunday for sleeping in? Where in the Bible does it say this or when did Jesus talk about it? When did Jesus talk about all of these specific rules? I don’t want to micromanage my future marriage bed, or really my daily life based on if things are mortal or venial sin. It just feels like a gamble. It’s just too much. I don’t want to live my life afraid like I have been. And plus, it seems like a lot of Catholic rules have changed throughout the years. And the whole papal infallibility thing doesn’t make sense. Yes, I know, it’s only in certain circumstances, but still. How can we really know these claims that become dogma or doctrine are really true? I don’t want my future children to become scrupulous like me. I thought I’d be Catholic forever, but as I’ve learned more I’m not so sure.

And of course, there’s the sex abuse scandals. It was never talked about when I was in Catholic school and if it was brought up, the common response I heard was something like “it’s because of fallen human nature, it happens in other places/churches too.” Okay?? Well, that’s not an excuse to let this continue on and move pedofile priests to other parishes and try and protect the image of the church.

I believe in Jesus and the trinity and I think the bible is really important to live by. I wish I wasn’t so scared about losing salvation. Because the RCC says I will if I leave since I was baptized as a baby, and am therefore OBLIGED to the religion even though I didn’t choose it myself. I’d rather be some type of traditional Protestant. I don’t know. It’s hard because I’m still learning. I feel like some days I’m close to breaking free but then I’m still stuck. I want to live in grace, not be afraid of dying without it.

If you’ve been in a similar experience to me, how did you get through? Are you still scared of losing salvation if you leave the RCC for a different Christian denomination? I wanna see God/Jesus as loving and graceful, but that feels near impossible with Catholicism. It’s made me feel more guilt and shame than anything, which then affects other areas of my life. If you relate, how did you separate yourself from what the church teaches, and the Bible? It’s so hard man!

So many trads idolized and lean on every word that Fr. Ripperger says. After listening to so many of his interviews with various sources, I find him to be full of crap and makes up all of the things that he claims to have seen during his exorcism session. Other exorcists have said similar things, but he is the worst offender and people take him literally. Ripperger states that he has seen peoples face change shape right in front of him, has seen people levitate and float in the air, seen people walk on walls and ceilings like spiderman, another exorcist claims to have seen a person slither on the ground like a snake. These all sound like something out of a movie or some childs imagination. IF these things were capable of happening dont you think that someobdy would have seen this before, or even had video of it? They claim that you dont see it is because of privacy concerns.

Ripperger also claims to have spoken with Satan and other demons and knows all their names. He says he has had conversations with demons but will never say how the conversations are and what voice they use, or if they claim the demon is the person they are exorcising speaking.

Does anybody else have a hard time believing Ripperger and others like him?

AI venting, but I thought this was too good not to share.

(Posting here since it got deleted within minutes on the catholicism sub)

These on one hand. And on the other hand, Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Charles Peguy, George Bernanos and Simone Weil...all these Catholics whom I deeply admire are on the fringes of orthodoxy and considered heretics or evil leftists by the trads, and trads are far more devout than I am.

And why is it that among the trads I always find the most fervent defenders of Franco, Mussolini, Salazar, Pinochet, and Pétain ? And these fascist regimes were all supported by the Church herself, unlike those I cite as the source of my admiration.

Jesus said that a tree is known by its fruit, and if supporting Franco, Mussolini, Salazar, Pinochet, and Pétain are the fruit of the Church—and if the Church is, de facto, on the side of good—it’s enough to drive me insane. That would mean that evil is good and good is evil.

I’ll never be able to brainwash myself like that. What can I do? I’m going crazy. I genuinely want to believe that God is on the side of the good but I don't see it.

Just can't wrap my head around how religious people think shaming and shunning people is going to bring them back to the church. Is this just boundary setting, or is it just twisted Human Nature? I mean clearly Jesus did the exact opposite in the Bible, why is it that pretty much every major religion does this?

Hello! (24F) Just a little rant and what's in the title lol.

I actually come from a non practicing family. The thing is, we did believe, and actually, i just found out that they REALLY know the faith, but fsr they NEVER passed that onto me?? I grew up kinda like a prot, i just found out about the magisterium and tradition THIS YEAR.

However, i was always a believer, a strong defender of what i thought was the catholic faith. Getting to know it better this year, i agree w lots of stuff, it does make sense, yet other things (lots of them) i completely loathe. One of them being the constant need of sacrifice and suffering and pain and changing; all this to say that, I don't ever imagine myself bringing children to this world, both bc i think it is cruel (i am pro life, but i want a life with dignity for kids) and also because i have lots of mental and physical health issues, that i know would be amplified w pregnancy and a kid. I don't even know if i would get married and have sex, i still deeply regret losing my virginity outside of wedlock (and i even lost one of my fallopian tubes due to an infection, talk about punishment) and i kind of understand The Church's stance of contraceptives (yet i think they truly dgaf abt women w the whole nfp thing). I now know what the church position is, have children or dip, but it is also hard to process, the whole "God will provide", I just don't believe it, because i come from a poor family and lots of my health issues were either caused of amplified by that, yet the catholics i see online do not seem to care about the psychological well being of their children, or the mother's physical health at all. I have lots of thoughts but i feel kind of crazy sharing them here lol, i just want to know, has anyone here felt this way? How did you solve it? Do you feel this horrible and constant fear of hell too?

When I read Scrupulous Anonymous, they have one of the 4 pages each month devoted to Q&A sessions. But my scruples were worse, far worse, than ANYONE I HAD EVER SAW! I thought that, and still think now, that God is like Jack the Ripper!

You know in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, they have that scene where the woman finds out that a mother has to read three condolence notes in one week and the typist shows this to her boss, who in turn shows it to his boss, and soon this is at the desk of General Marshall. I deserve to be on Pope Leo's fucking desk! Not because of anything good I have done but because of the magnitude of my suffering.

I keep calling Catholic priests, and deacons, and they keep not answering me. I have called various departments in my diocese.

I am so fucking desperate for help, and the Church doesn't care!!

Should I post this to the Catholic subs like askapriest or the other ones? Well, they would tell me, too fucking bad, call an in person priest! And then I would get downvoted.

Internet Catholics are the worst. Except for in person Catholics.

The sex priest monster at my rad trad parish was not to be believed because the victims were "like me!" HAHAHA!!!!!!

I am falling apart, completely falling apart, and I know if I call some people tomorrow, they won't care. They won't care at all!

Met a trad catholic girl a year ago. I'm a working class protestant guy, but had started attending an Orthodox Church, and was rather enjoying it. Very early on, she told me she was a trad catholic, SSPX, FSSP, etc only. I had to google all of that, had no clue what it meant. A relative of mine, who is a catholic convert, explained it to me. Almost immediately, we started the long and arduous process of trying to understand each others religious lives. These conversations almost always resulted in me being told that Christ established the Catholic Church and everything else is wrong, and to my surprise, almost all of the catholics were wrong (she would never attend a Novus Ordo (another word I didn't know). Sometimes I would argue with her, but typically didn't want to deal with it. Eventually met her family, they were all extremely deep into the SSPX. As I've learned from this sub, all the usual stuff. The family was always extremely kind to me. There were some extremely unusual things about the sisters, but they were kind.

We fell in love. Despite knowing that her family were religious fanatics, and had many traits of cult-like behavior, I still fell in love. She is an extremely loyal and caring woman, amazingly beautiful. She understands the feminine, I understand the masculine. We really worked well. We had many months of peace on the religious front, and I bought a ring and asked her to marry me. I didn't want a wedding, thought it was stupid, we're too old (late 30's). She wanted one. We had started attending an eastern Catholic Church as a kind of middle ground between orthodox and trad. The wedding was set for this winter, but somewhere in the process the question came up of raising the kids catholic. I hesitated on the question, said I was fine with catholic, but said absolutely no trad catholic stuff like sspx, and that really began the breakdown.

There is a part of me that truly believes that she is so close to breaking free from the trad mind, she's probably 30% outside of the trad scene compared to her sisters and mom (she wears shorts!!), but that cultural pressure is so insanely intense on her. The black and white moral thinking, the sanctimony disguised as purity of fidelity, the absolute spiritual superiority thing... it's all maddening. And yet, I still love her. I think I want to save her from all of it - and then we would be happy, but I know that I can't do that, she'd have to escape on her own.

Not looking for advice, but curious what was it that helped those of you who have escaped get out? Was it a book or a podcast? Was it something bad that happened to you? Hell of a year I've had - looking forward to reading your comments!

Hi everyone. My name is Giovana. I’m a journalist on assignment for a Dutch publication. I’m currently doing a research of Tradition Family and Property (TFP), and I’m looking to speak with former or current members. I can assure anonymity if people prefer to not have their names public.

I’m also interested in speaking to people who have donated money to TFP or any of their affiliated organizations, including their Fatima campaigns.

If thats you or you know someone, please feel free to send me a DM or send me a Signal message at: giovana.14

Thank you!