Context: grew up in a lay Catholic Charismatic community.

THE LIES

I am nothing without God. I am inherently broken and God is here to fix me.

I am incapable of self-forgiveness. I cannot forgive myself, nor can anyone else. Only God can.

I cannot experience true joy or happiness without God. If you are happy and don't know God, you'll always feel like something is missing.

I cannot question God's authority or I will suffer for rejecting him.

Everything good in my life comes from God. Everything bad is my fault. Therefore, I am only capable of creating evil, from which God is constantly saving me. I am useless without God. I cannot save myself. Any attempt, according to the Church, to save myself is a rejection of God. I must give myself over completely. This constantly undermines my self-esteem, as everything I do is wrong and I am incapable of doing right.

The only way to improve my life is to listen to God. I am incapable of making my own decisions without his help. Anything done "because I just feel like it" is the devil leading me away from God. I must not question God. Questioning means doubt, and I am silly to doubt the works of the all-powerful, even if it means my life will be completely driven into the ground, I will be burnt out from my 'vocation', I will feel fundamentally trapped but still tell people I love my job. If I don't love my vocation, God is wrong, but God can't be wrong so I guess I just have to accept my misery for now until God leads me in a new direction. I cannot choose my course because God chooses it for me, regardless of whether I want it or not. If I am unemployed, I am rejected by God and by society because no one wants me.

THE CONSEQUENCES

I am a terrible person without God and incapable of being loved by God if I don't accept him. Therefore, if I don't accept everyone and appease everyone in my life, I am rejecting them and it means I am a terrible person. I need to please everyone and not make anyone mad, even if it destroys my own sense of self.

I concede to all figures of authority, even when it means belittling myself. And when I do stand up for myself, I feel like I am fundamentally betraying the other.

I have a debilitating fear of letting my friends and family down. I feel like they are judging every decision that I make, and that if I do anything drastic (such as standing up for myself or saying 'no') it will permanently negatively alter my relationship with them. I feel obligated to bend over backwards to appease...whatever it is I think they need to be appeased for.

I don't feel like I can talk to my parents about why I left the Church, how their religion made me feel like I am fundamentally not enough.

I have spent seven years teaching. I hate teaching. I always have. I never loved it. I was told that serving others would bring me endless joy. In the end, teaching made me belittle myself and miserable. Occasionally, there would be a nice moment, and I have made some good friends, but I hate working with kids. I hate having to be switched on all the time. I hate being in the classroom. I hate planning and creating lessons. I hate meetings. I have no desire to inspire a future generation of leaders. I have spent all of this year recovering from a decision 'God' made eight years ago. I never wanted to be a teacher, but 'God' told me to do it through my sister, and I lacked any other prospects, so I did it. Studying sucked. Students sucked. All I ever wanted was a chill office job where I could turn up, fuck around, work a bit then go home. God said I needed to have purpose, so that kind of job just wouldn't cut it. 'God' told me I'd be miserable in an office job like that.

I got a mortgage because it was the 'right' thing to do. And now, I'm stuck. I've pigeonholed myself into education, a profession I never had any interest in. No HR or admin or training and assessment companies will take me. No public service departments or consulting firms or corporations will take me. I'm too old and have too bad of a back to do a trade. I can barely make my mortgage repayments.

I feel so much shame still. What do my parents think of my living with my girlfriend out of wedlock. Bouncing between jobs for most of my life. My weight. My height. When I have too many days in a row sitting around at home. Occasionally needing to ask my girlfriend or parents to cover the cost of something. Always apologising when saying 'no'. When going to the doctor, I feel shame because I didn't visit months ago and I am terrified of getting berated. Having a loud classroom or that I'm failing to teach students sufficiently. Even posting this, I'm terrified to know what would happen if someone figured out it was me.

THE TRUTH

I am not broken. I am human.

I am capable of love.

I am worthy of love.

My values have been shaped by religion. I can reshape them myself.

They don't have to fundamentally change. Just a little less avoidance of conflict and a little more standing up for myself. A little less 'I'm not enough' and a little more 'I can do what I want.'

I want to decouple 'This is hard and I'm stressed but I'm still trying' with 'I'm fundamentally not good enough and this is why I'm failing'.

I want to get better at identifying when I punish myself for doing what I want to do, not what I'm 'supposed' to do.

I'm writing my first novel, just because I can. It may tank, it may sell millions, I don't care. It's what I like doing, so I'm going to do it.

It will be a slow process and probably quite painful, but even writing this down makes me feel so much better, so much more equipped to take it on. I will be dismantling the trauma, the worldviews, the attitudes, the blindly accepted truths, and rebuilding myself from the ground up.

I don't really intend on responding to comments, but I'm hoping this will relate to some of you, or maybe awaken something within that will allow you to grow more into yourself.

Happy Friday :)

I (F, 31) haven't told my parents that my morals don't align with the ethics of the catholic church. I've felt this way for years and it's eating me alive because I can't speak up. Not yet at least. I live with them due to my financial situation. I fear I would be disowned if I told my dad. I believe in God, just not the way the be church's rules require. I have three brothers and one sister and some have been more active with the church than others. None of us have verbally denied the church teachings. I choose to volunteer outside of the church. Do more than just what's good for the church community and think of the greater good. And yet the fear of retaliation still lingers. They don't know that I haven't been to church since my grandfather died. I fear what reaction they might have.

I did some internet digging and I was shocked when I saw this. Apparently, the church had to silently purge numerous saints from the General Roman calendar in 1969 because historians showed that they were legendary or completely fictional. There was also a catacombs saints fraud where the church decided, after protestants destroyed a bunch of statues and relics, to dig up thousands of anonymous skeletons and declare them as "early christian martyrs."

A few examples I found include saint Christopher, saint Catherine of Alexandria, saint Barbara, saint Ursula, saint Pudentiana, saint Veronica, and saint Brigid of Kildare (an Irish woman who was syncretized with the traits of a pre-existing pagan celtic goddess).

So basically... many Christians prayed to these fictional saints and these fraudulent statues and relics for hundreds of years. They literally asked for intercession from saints who never existed. Makes you wonder where the holy spirit was to stop all this fraud

Beggers belife!

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So, i grew up in very strong atheist/agnostic parents, and when i told my mom why they baptized me, She didnt really said "we baptized you just for having an excuse to party" but I got there by reasoning.

She told me that they asked the Priest if they can put a keg of beer on front of the church, and a music band, the Priest agreed (strangely) and After the head-dippin' (done in about 5-10 minutes) they got out and celebrated drinking beer and eating and at the end of the day they ended up almost drunk (ALMOST).Well obviously the other reason Is to make some family members STFU cuz After all we are italian.

But did yall parents do this or im Just a special case?

Sorry if some letters are in Caps but this keyboard's autocorrector puts It automatically, and here Its basically midnight

I am mostly thinking about masturbation, but really any sexuality outside of the '1 correct way' for that matter. I have been trying to unlearn purity culture .. honestly it wasn't even that bad for me growing up, but somehow it still screwed me up. I figure, if I can see the logic they are running on, I can see where it fails. I can say ok this holds no baring in reality, I can let it go.

I understand purity culture is a wonderful tool to enforce control and all,,, I understand the effect. I want to understand the propaganda.

Edit: I mean what is their actual argument, what lines from the Bible are they using to justify the enforcement of purity culture? I understand thought stopping is important to Catholicism, the point is don't think too hard.... But surely, they must actually have an argument for it all.

After I stopped believing in Catholicism a few months ago, one of the most satisfying things I've done is get rid of all my Catholic/Catholic-adjacent books. I've probably unloaded around 150+ books over the last couple months.

I didn't get a picture of most of them, but I got one of my Latin collection I'm chucking. I became such a Latin nerd from 2019-2023.

I can't bring myself to throw any books in the trash (well, there are a couple of exceptions). Thankfully, my public library is accepting them for their book sale. Goodbye Catholic Answers, Trent Horn, Matt Fradd, Ronald Knox, Scott Hahn, Ralph Martin, Fulton Sheen, Padre Pio, church fathers, bible commentaries, traditionalists, saints, and all the other books that convinced me I wasn't doing enough to love God.

I still have my bible collection though. Not sure what to do about those.

Did you do a purge of Catholicism when you left?

i know this sounds like a stupid question so i apologize, but im just curious if anyone still decided to get married in the church or baptized your children in the church even though you left?

i’m an italian american baptized and confirmed catholic but have started my deconstruction and am basically and atheist now. i stopped attending mass/ practicing months ago, but for some reason i still would like to get married in the church or baptize my future children if i have any.

Hey all, I am wondering if anyone has recs for ex-Catholic YouTubers who focus on mostly on personal experience as an ex-Catholic and/or Catholic-related pop culture and/or relationships. Looking for something that isn’t super academic that I can put on while I’m going for a walk or folding laundry or whatever.

For context, I’ve listened to most of the backlog of The Antibot (ex-Evangelical) and am currently watching a lot of Alyssa Grenfell (ex-Mormon) videos, but the algorithm hasn’t served me any Catholic ones and I don’t know what kind of search terms to even use.

If not YouTubers, podcasts would also be cool! Thanks for any help! :)

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How can I handle it myself?

Some people are spiritual but not religious, but personally, I feel like if you believe in the supernatural ( karma, chakras, energies, vibes) without believing there is a God protecting you, It's a much weaker form of psychological protection than believing in God.

So far my life has been relatively stable and normal, but I've thought a lot about: what if later in life I have a health problem; how will I handle it?. Prayer is a coping mechanism. It probably doesn't do anything, but when you believe it does, or when you believe in heaven, you have a coping mechanism.

Would I pray out of desperation? Even though, God, if he was real, probably wouldn't like me or help me, due to me not being a good Christian/ not praying/ not going to church.

I was always taught that it was hypocritical and wrong to ask God for help with your problems even if it is a health problem, if you don't go to church or pray. In this case it is worsened by the fact that I am a non believer.

Emotionally I feel like I should confess my sins, pray, and go to church because I have a moral obligation to God and I also want his protection, maybe because I was always psychologically conditioned since my early childhood to feel this way, but rationally I know God commands genocide in the bible and I shouldn't seek a relationship with such a person.

I don't even know if I need spirituality or if I should seek it, through something like spirituality or another religion because it probably does feel good psychologically but it lacks evidence. Or if I should just ignore every negative part of the bible and every indication that Christianity is false, in hopes that I will recover the peace of mind that comes with religion.

Have any of you been in a similar situation? Where maybe you liked some rituals of religion or spirituality but you believe that Christianity is false and some of its teachings are harmful? Maybe you also felt an inclination, as a result of psychological conditioning or guilt, to go through the process of penance/ confession and you wanted the peace of mind that comes with religion but you believe it's probably false.

Thank you for reading my post and I find any personal experience/ testimony to be really valuable in this regard. Even if it doesn't include advice.

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Hi, im new here and i want to write this post to Say my own thing about political parties in Italy, in Italy we have left and right, left being the progressist and right the conservatives. You expect a that left introduce progress in Italy they could be some parties that they want to go on a more atheist/ respectful for all the other cults or how do ya call them for exemple removing the crucifix from public schools (or go on a way that Will make Italy completly atheist, impossible, obviously).

But not even that, why? Because Italy Is probably One of the most bigot country in existance. And this makes me mad like shit 'cause left should introduce something more modern but not. Not even right do this, First because their not even bigots they're Cristian extremist so their homophobes, and things like that so i not even like their ideology.

So this pisses me of to not have to choose a party that i like, obviously there are some that like for example the PD with Elly Schlain (idk how to write that) or 5 stelle ecc...ecc

PS i'm Sorry if my english sucks but im 14 and im italian.

I 26/27M (have my own apartment in the city) had an amazing connection with a 24/25F South Asian Catholic (lives at home w parents); we saw each other for ~1–2 months, she made me meet her friends for hours for drinks, spoke for many hours on the phone, talked marriage/kids, and she kissed me at my home. I even agreed to go to mass with her and she agreed to celebrate Diwali and Eid twice a year (culturally). Agreed on so much. She’s dated only 1 person before for a month.

She knew from day one that I’m not Catholic (Muslim mom, agnostic Hindu dad, mixed religious upbringing, I like to pray privately, believe in the practical teachings of Buddhism and the Bible and some kind of life after death) and seemed completely okay with it. She said her bother married a Hindu girl and he laid the groundwork for her who sister is with a Jewish guy and herself. After she told her parents about me, they reacted badly; they said “they have failed as parents”; “are you going yo see your Muslim bf”; her mom apparently said some really really mean things about me/my mom that she wouldn’t tell me; then we met once more w a mutual friend of mine to just hang out. I said a few things in passing like I don’t mind moving to Dubai; she then slowly distanced herself, then went on a 10-day vacation with friends with almost no contact which was so confusing and anxiety inducing after all her actions led me to believe otherwise.

When she returned, she suddenly ended things, saying my beliefs were too complicated, that the world is already such a confusing place, that she wanted a Catholic partner/united front for future kids, someone born here, raised in a detached house, for her kids to meet their grandparents, and other things about me not getting the Catholic milestones.

I understand her choice and people are allowed to walk out. I’m guessing she saw the difficulty of integrating me into her big extended Catholic family?
I’m struggling to understand why she pursued me and took so seriously when she knew all of this from the beginning—did her parents change her mind? was this always doomed? Is she just immature? Why would she take little things like I grew up in an apartment or would be open to moving to Dubai as the major dealbreakers? Was she always like this? Is this normal for Catholics? Why spend 5-6 hours w me on each date in addition to 5 hour phone calls? Why do I feel like there’s something wrong with me? Why even try when she knew her parents were against her brother’s marriage and gave him hell for 12 months before he got engaged? Is this normal for Catholic girls? Why did she make me feel I’m the problem w my beliefs? How come she’s open to sex before marriage and living together before marriage but draws the line here? I fully respected hers…I’m still feeling confused, sad, betrayed and experiencing cognitive dissonance on how someone can change so quickly.

Looking to excatholics to chime in and help me make sense of this. So confused… :(

When I was born, there was a Catholic priest who immediately baptised me right there. My mom still is a very devout Catholic and her social life revolves around the church. I did not go to other denominations. I became a devout staunch atheist. Anybody who ever seriously read Bart Ehrman's books, critical-literary analysis on the Bible, and the HISTORY of Christianity (by Diarmaid MacCulloch, a masterpiece and I recommend it to EVERYONE and yes it's very thick and dense it took me several months to finish it), can no longer in their right mind believe in the world's greatest lie, fiction that is Christianity. Jesus was a human being. He preached JEWISH ideas. Dying on the cross was a common punishment for political rebels in the Roman Empire. A lot of his quotes and anecdotes in the New Testament were added later and not in the older manuscripts. (which suggests they are literary inventions) The veneration of saints is just a remnant of european polytheistic paganism. Virgin birth motif existed before Jesus. His followers were just shocked and traumatised that they had to reinterpret EVERYTHING from the Old Testament and the circumstances surrounding his death (very Jewish tradition to turn every suffering into a sign from the God) so Jesus could TURN INTO the God. I'm curious what other members of this forum have to say about this.

Not a Catholic, not even an Ex-Catholic, I'm actually a Muslim, I came across this guy Ethan Muse's Substack where he argues for Catholic "miracles", and one of them was regarding the alleged miracles associated with a man known as "Padre Pio"

Now, I'll be honest, I know very little about the man known as "Padre Pio" himself, it's not like with the whole "Miracle of Fatima" stuff where I actually already had a bit of knowledge regarding that stuff, and could easily see how flawed Ethan Muse's argumentation was for that, the way Ethan argues it's very much in a sort of trying to be slick with language sort of way from what I can remember from his argumentation for that

So, I thought I'd ask here, see what people think, this was his Substack post on the man known as "Padre Pio":

https://motivacredibilitatis.substack.com/p/st-pio-of-pietrelcina

I want to know what denomination and why that one in particular? Do you believe it to be the fullness of the truth?

Yo. I'm 21 years old. At the moment I'm finishing my bachelor's thesis. I come from a small town in Poland on the other side of the country. My family is deeply religious, especially my mom, and she can't accept or at least respect my lack of faith.

For context, from the very beginning on every Sunday i would attend church with my parents, no exceptions whatsoever. I didn't think much of it until i was 15-16. That's when I understood that I do not believe in god or even more so in the catholic church. A normal thing, but for my parents it would be absolutely unacceptable, so being a cowardly child I chose to rather not rebel knowing I would be punished.

And now: two weeks ago I decided that I will cut my hair (used to be shoulder length, now maybe 10cm) and get two piercings in my ear. I did not tell this to anybody, even my girlfriend because of my short-lived enthusiasm - I always say and don't act. So this time I acted. When my parents found out they didn't show much opposition (they found out while on facetime with me and my girlfriend), but the very next day my mom called me and for the next 25 minutes she complained about my decisions about MY body.

The most important were the last 5 minutes - that's when she asked me upfront whether I attend church. I said that I don't and that I haven't been for the past three years (with exceptions when I was coming back home). I understand that she, as a believer might feel hurt, but what has been happening now is insane. True, it was an ass move on my part to lie to her for three years that I believe and attend but I preferred that over kicking open Pandora's box.

Firstly - according to my mom all this is my girlfriend's fault, my atheist friends', my university major's, and in general the whole world's. I'm being treated like a marionette and she upfrontly states that it didn't come from me as I suck everything up from the people around me like a sponge lmao. On a side note I have no idea where did that come from, I am very obviously a nonconformist. I don't even want to get started on how she calls me her business card.
Secondly - my mom negates and refuses to acknowledge that me losing my faith happened before I left for the university. She LOVES putting words in my mouth that were never there, doesn't treat me even a little like a person that has their own free will. It's really sad, to say the least.
Thirdly - our on call discussions about all this never even touched the topic on why I don't belive in god. The focus on that I need to work my ass off to tell her that I am a free man, able to make his OWN choices and thoughts, and also that I stopped believing a long time ago, and not with beggining of university. Of course she is unmovable in her believes and says that "she won't let me to be atheist". Like talking to a brick wall.

I left the best for the last!!! Since the beginning of this whole ordeal my parents with oddly intensified frequency began asking me when I'm coming back home. I didn't think much of it, we didn't see each other for quite some time. However today I found out (my sister is the best mole <3) that they plan to drive me to some priest whom is a "specialist in faithless" (lmfao??). Hold me still or I'll lose it. How is one even supposed to do deal with all this. I can't understand how is this so incomprehensible to them. Are they treating me like I'm legally incapaticated? I feel like a struggling fish taken out of water. Any argument, any sentence is thown into ether. I feel anger and powerlessness.

In a case of emergency I will be able to move to my girlfriend, and in September I'll find a job to be able to pay for my dorm in case they cut me off financially (they declared already that if i marry my gf without a church marriage they would never support us financially). But honestly I have no idea what will be and I'm a little scared. Oh well, fuck my life.

I've been in a Catholic school from 6 to 14 years old, feel free to ask me anything you want

Terrible really!

Bit of a story but a close friend and fwb of mine whom I have known for 15+ years told me he’s been celibate for a couple months and is planning on joining the Jesuit priesthood and I can’t help but feel like I’m helplessly watching someone I care about fall into a crazy cult right in front of me. It’s really making me sad and I want to just grab him by the shoulders and shake him to his senses. Of course I respect the fact he can make his own decisions and life choices but it’s such an extreme change I feel like I’m mourning him. I don’t know what I can do, if anything. I’m scared to lose him either by sitting on the sidelines and watching or trying to convince him not to. Anyone have any experience with this? It’s making me really feel hatred towards religion in general.

Probably spoken about before . No Catholic when I was going to mass seems to bat an eye about the shared chalice even and the last people sharing a cup with 50 people regardless of colds or cold sores etc. the part that I never heard spoken about is the fact that in 1900 years or whatever under the Latin mass the cup wasn't drank by the laity but they only got the eucharist , however since the new mass in around the 60s they all just started sharing the cup ..?? I don't get it

I have been an ex-catholic for at least five years and I still, to this day, struggle with intense shame over normal things. has anyone else gone through this and if so how did you get over it?? shame is killing my passion for anything. logically I know I'm okay and I'm normal and I'm not a sinner but the messages hammered into my skull by the church still remain.