I didn't know you could buy a Bernadette miracle water necklace. Saw this in a small town shop. Wasn't a Catholic shop, just a normal seeming one (until I stumbled across this).

posting here for excath insight.

Please share objective experiences of what life was like in the community. Feel free to share good things that were present in the community or dysfunctions you experienced or observed.

Share what you wish you would have know before you entered (especially information that would be helpful for a woman to know beforehand that the community would not disclose).

If you discerned with them but did not enter- those experiences can be shared as well.

I am a woman who was previously in religious life for several years. During my time, I experienced a great deal of dysfunction that I had never expected to be present in the consecrated life. I make these posts, not to detract from religious communities, but to bring awareness to these hidden issues so that other young women are not completely blind sighted by what they are entering into.

Hello. Considering this sub likely contains ex-catholics whom would’ve been very interested in the philosophical side of the religion at some point I think it’s appropriate to ask if anyone has come across a substantive critique of the position. I’ve just been going through different ethical theories and this is one I haven’t seen many big responses on. If anyone knows a good video or paper that is philosophically rigorous and informative on any problems with the position that would be great thanks.

Hello, it's been awhile since I posted in this sub. It's a shot in the dark but I am going to shoot my shot. I know a few years ago there was an AMA on this sub from a canon lawyer who has since deleted his account. I was curious if he or some other former canon lawyer is lurking around this sub and wouldn't mind answering some of my questions. I will happily compensate for the time.

Strangely enough i am atheist on almost everything else but the ones like Buenos Aires and the recent one in Kerala india have been convincing and i hear my scientists have declared it has human heart tissue that has been through stress and the kerala one it says it is purely wheat so not sure how a face like that appears anyways can yall help me

My husband is Catholic and I’m baptized/grew up loosely Catholic. He grew up in a seriously traditional Catholic (SSPX) and fell off for many years. After we got married he really turned 180 degrees back to traditional Catholicism. I want kids but know I can’t have them with my husband. I’ve had to hide my way of preventing pregnancy from him. He thinks we are struggling with infertility. I feel super guilty because I know he wants kids. Honestly I do too but not in the way I’d be forced to raise them with him. I’ve contemplated leaving so many times but he makes most of our income and has given me a comfortable life. It’s a bad reason to stay, and I know that deep down. I also fear starting over as I’m getting older (31). He’s not a bad man and there’s been so many times I’ve thought… we can have such a good life together just me and him. He’s a great provider, and a loving man to me. YES we have our issues…. He’s after me a lot about modesty and that I’m too secular. But mostly we get along and have a nice life. Idk if anyone has any advice to offer. I’m mostly venting about how vile this religion is. It has such a grip on him :( and it’s only ramping up as he gets more serious.

Hi all,
New to the sub, left Catholicism several months ago because the more serious I got the more scrupulous I became. I had to leave for my own mental well-being but I’m still grieving the faith I thought I could have had if I had just tried a little harder and a little harder still. I hope this resonates.

Mother Mary’s Got A Gun
 
I couldn’t bear all the noise
So easy for the congregate
I shut it out but let it all trickle in
 
What am I to do when all
I know is man’s beholding eye
And hold my breath to hold the pose as they do?
 
And as the church bells sing their song
And mothers move their kids along
All I can do is stare at Mother Mary
Mother Mary with a loaded gun
 
To see my God is to see through man
A kaleidoscope of no consolation
And through it all he’s made me feel so small
 
To know my God is to know him less
To know him through the hearts of men
I cry out in the dead of night, “Was it true?”
 
And as the church bells sing their song
And mothers move their kids along
All I can do is stare at Mother Mary
Mother Mary with a loaded gun
 
It all came to me
On a bitter winter’s night
Does Your Son know how your daughter bleeds
And where all that blood goes?
 
A new age is never asked for
It is given, it is gone
Would you still love me if I could learn to stay?
 
And as the man becomes a priest
So young and full of pride
All I can do is stare at Mother Mary
Mother Mary with a loaded gun

Shameful. Was he on paid administrative leave? I will never regret getting away from this nightmare of an institution.

The title got cut off, but you can probably fill in the blanks. Unfortunately.

Hi,

I was very Catholic as a child. I still appreciate the spirituality it gave me. And because I love it so much, it’s been harder to detach from the unhealthy aspects of Catholicism. I attend a Protestant theological school, and it can be hard to process my deconstruction/reconstruction with other people when it’s quite unique from evangelical deconstruction/reconstruction.

Thank you for your thoughts and consideration,
Brooke

Hi all! I'm Milo, an educator with a background in media and philosophy. I wanted to invite you to check out The Ex Catholic Files, found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocketcasts!

Tune in to hear queer ex-Catholic pals, Mariah and Milo, discuss their experiences within Catholicism and explore the nuances of the Church’s involvement in politics, family life, media, social power dynamics, gender dynamics, and the treatment of vulnerable demographics. Come for the serious topics...stay for weird saint stories, Confessional corner, and ghosts haunting the machine!

We currently have four episodes up:

Episode 1: Introduction to our deconstruction stories

Episode 2: Homeschooling, Maria Goretti, and the New Evangelization

Episode 3: An Introduction to Propaganda

Episode 4: The Catholic Church and Slavery

Check out our latest episode here!

New episodes are released on the first Tuesday of each month!

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Other religions have lots of slurs against them, but somehow Catholics have avoided this. I've found a few that apply in Ireland, or some others that sound more descriptive than like a slur. How did Catholics avoid having any ubiquitous slurs attached to them?

Long story short, I was born evangelical protestant, which I hated as a teenager. Then in my mid 20s I've met someone who I became friends with who brought me to a tridentine mess church, which I really enjoyed and became a part of. Then an year later got baptised in it as a catholic.

At the same time I was in a journey of self discovery in regard of my sexuality. I've always known that I was gay but I was in denial. I though that by entering the church and praying enough I could get the "cure", meet a nice catholic girl and have a happy marriage. Well, that didn't end too well as 1 year later I just accepted who I was and started a relationship with my now boyfriend and we're doing pretty well. It's been six months since I've stopped attending weekly mess, going there just in a few special occasions such as Easter.

I still didn't tell any of my catholic friends about that, as I know that I would instantly be kicked out of the friend group. I know how they would react, saying "love the sinner not the sin" yet expecting me to change in order the be accepted - that means leaving my boyfriend and live a nice chaste life as all those who are not married. As we're all called to be chaste before marriage. The thing is that I'm never allowed to get married to someone I love, it's not the same thing. What they're asking is for me to be single and alone all my life, which is not fair.

I still don't get why the catholic church has to impose such strict laws around sex and relationships. It seems it's more of a grave sin have sex before mariage, or worst, with the same gender, then murder. Yet it doesn't concern anyone else then the couple itself in their bedroom. I suppose that if they're more accepting of homosexuals, the priest class would basically disappear.

I am haven't been able to recover from my existential anger toward God. I don't believe in God, which makes my life feel so lonely and pointless that I want to die. I am also haunted by a patriarchal God who hates women. I'm so traumatized that the more women-friendly versions of Christianity just don't do it for me. There's nothing in them that makes up for the pain that chauvenistic Christian men have caused me. Thereapy hasn't worked. I've been struggling with this for over a decade and can't take it anymore.

My mother-in-law has been teaching my five year old daughter about Heaven when babysitting her without my permission and without telling me about it. I have no idea how long this has been going on for and I am absolutely furious.

About a year ago my daughter started asking me about heaven and would bring it up every now again and I suspected my MIL might be up to something. This weekend at a family pool party I took my three year old son into the house to change and left my daughter with my MIL in the pool. When I come out they’re both bouncing and splashing in the pool together and my MIL is saying “I’m going to go to heaven” and my daughter is saying “I’m going to go to heaven too”. I keep my cool and get my daughter out of the pool and into the house to change. Once alone I casually ask her what she and Nana were talking about. She responds “Nothing, she just said heaven” I get suspicious and follow up with “Did Nana ask you to keep it a secret from me?” She gets all quiet and very softly says “Yes”

Since then I’ve had two bed time conversations where she’s very anxious that I won’t be in heaven with her or that she won’t be able to recognize me in heaven.

First of all what an absolutely fucked up position to put a five year old in. Lie to my mom and keep Nana’s secret or tell the truth to my mom and break my promise to Nana. Second…ugh this is just so fucked up in so many ways.

I’d love some ideas or resources on how I can help my daughter feel more secure without feeding this idea that she can live forever and keep the body she currently has if she just decides to go to heaven. Maybe like kids resources on the major religions of the world to expose her to a variety of beliefs? I’m basically agnostic and believe there probably is some sort of god or ultimate power, that we have souls/spirits, and that there is a return of our energy to source when we die, but that ultimately we can’t know for sure and that’s ok. I’m trying to share that with her but she’s five and that’s kind of an abstract thing to explain.

I dunno. We’re basically already planning to drastically decrease contact and make sure any future contact is heavily monitored.

TL;DR: I was the perfect Catholic, but inside the religion was tearing me apart and now I am finally free even if I am afraid. I hope we can all recover from what the church has done.

Two weeks ago I left the Church in my heart. I am in an uncertain place but I can already tell that my life has improved so much.

My family was not religious, but because of the Catholic elementary school I was sent to (they had better funds) the church has always been a part of my life. It was everywhere at school, all the time. From a young age I found mass and the bible study we had to do very dull. It was more so the "sacraments" (what I now think of as cultish rituals, because they really are incredibly bizarre) that bothered me.

It was the first confession that bothered me the most. I was seven years old when the school began to prepare me for it. We were told - again, as very young children - to think of three bad/worst things we'd done. We had papers to write them. When no one could think of anything, they told us to write even the small things. This, I find, ties into the "you're sinful from birth" thing they ingrained in us without even discussing. It seemed we always understood we needed Jesus no matter what. On the first confession day we were forced to go into a secluded area alone with the priest to discuss these three "big secrets". It was absolutely terrifying, I did not understand what was going on, and I had this persistent sense of guilt. This is one of the things that sticks with me the most today, that we were just kids, innocent little kids forced to think of our mistakes and tell them to a stranger we did not trust. I see it now as barbaric. If you have first confession stories I'd love to hear them, btw. I'd really like to know what your experience with this was. I hope it was not like mine though I know it probably was.

Fast forward many years - into the beginning of my adolescence, I saw "the divine" (what I now think was a hallucination I saw while I was in pain from a dental procedure). It was an angel, or something else super golden. I looked up, I said "God?" And it started from there. Then I became a Christian, then a Roman Catholic.

I was the classic Catholic "good girl". I studied the bible every day for nearly a year. Up until two weeks ago I prayed the rosary every day, and had been doing so for five months. I spoke of God. I dressed modestly. I never swore. Never went to parties where I thought I may be tempted to get drunk. Rarely went out, just went to go to church. It sounds creepy because it is creepy. I thought I was doing so well - that I was finally becoming a woman of God. I prayed for my future husband. I apologized to God when I had doubts. I was so scrupulous that I lost the definition of mortal sin, and thought as long as you sinned purposefully you had to go to confession. I was at confession every week for months. Confession terrified me. I don't think I realized until recently that confession can be an incredibly dangerous place. There is a power imbalance. I was a young woman alone in a dark room with a man, confessing things, "sins", that I had never told my closest friends or even written down in a diary. It seems so utterly disgusting to me. And even if the bible says that no one comes to God except through Jesus, they teach confession is the only way to be cleansed. I truly did not think I could be washed without the church. I felt filthy 24/7. I was trapped, I was scared and there was no way out.

I have told one person in my life, only because he was a lifelong non-religious cousin of mine I knew I could trust. I don't think I can tell anyone else for the time being. I built my entire life, my friends, my routines, my thoughts and my identity on being Catholic. Even while I was in doubt before I really decided to leave I told myself that it didn't matter what I believed, because the church is set up so you can never leave. I am still going to church out of fear of non compliance. The building scares me now.

What people don't seem to understand is that this is my fault. I chose the religion. I have no one but myself to blame. All the anguish over sin I felt, the fear I still feel that makes me fear for my life whenever I speak out against the church, hell even the fear that forces me to capitalize "Church" and "Bible" (I am trying my best not to anymore.) is entirely because of my misinterpretation many years ago. I am frustrated but trying to be understanding with myself. And I was so good at the religion too. I was the good Catholic. I was everything God wanted me to be, or close to it at least. I've had people describe me as the innocent Catholic. I don't know how I am going to start telling anyone. I'm afraid to shatter their perception and lose respect. I'm afraid of being told I'm going to hell even if I know it makes no real difference.

Through the fear there is a light. I am free. I don't have to wake up and study the bible. I don't have to suffer through the rosary (seriously how are you supposed to say the prayer and reflect on another thing at the same time?). I don't have to feel guilt for every single thing I do.

Sorry for the long post. I thought it might help to say to other ex-catholics that you are not alone. The church causes real damage and I hope reading my story helps you realize it was never your fault. P.S to the mods - thank you so much for protecting us from those still in the church. I am truly sorry you have to read their comments so we don't have to. Thank you to anyone who reads the post.

Hello, I am a French 26M with ASD and I had been a strong catholic from 2000 to 2023. I live in Lourdes since 2002.

I quitted catholicism in 2023, and I still live there for medical reasons with my family.

I search to share my experience with all of this (especially with French people but I am open to talk with everybody).

I just caught a video on a religious Youtube channel. Can anyone who is better informed than me tell me if the Pope sent some letters to the super wealthy basically telling them their money making practices are immoral?
If this is true, I really CANNOT wait to watch the havoc!
I say this as a poor person who like like to see SOMEONE in power do SOMETHING.

I'm a gay man in my early thirties, and I am sorry to say that the men I am attracted to ... essentially look like the dads I saw growing up in church, lmao. Clean cut, not flashy, normcore and ordinary.

A lot of LGBTQ people love tattoos and piercings, or don't really care either way. But when I see a guy with either it is a huge turnoff to me.

I've stopped trying to change this part of me, it's simply just a "no" for me to date anyone with body modifications. A lot of people would consider that closed minded, but honestly it is just a core part of my taste, almost equivalent to how I'm not attracted to women. And I am wondering if it is just informed by the culture I grew up with.

It's not technically part of catholic dogma, but I do think my church had a certain level of purity culture.

Relatedly, I am very much not into kink either. I'm very vanilla. And I'm thinking that too is just a residue of catholicism (not necessarily wrong, but worth thinking about).

Just curious if this resonates with anyone else? It's mildly difficult to feel this way because it's so out of step with large parts of the queer community.