I’m intrigued by the regular vs irregular mass attendees data. I’ve joked about being “culturally Catholic” for awhile now, it looks like I’m not alone. My mother, who was very faithful, always noted there’s a difference between what Christ said the rules were & what flawed man says the rules are. 🤷♀️
My mother and sister go to mass every week, sometimes more than once a week. My sister even does the vigil over the Eucharist in the middle of the night. They 100% support all gay, lesbian, and trans people. All that shit is just not part of faith to them. It never has been to anyone in my family
I’m aligned with your family’s perspective. I grew up in a gay enclave during the AIDS crisis, so there were loads of LGBTQIA2S+ Catholics. We were aware that the Church doctrine didn’t match our daily lives, but it wasn’t seen as a problem (although it did get unfairly cast as a racial thing).
I think it helped that there were a LOT of Catholics, which meant multiple churches, which meant people sort of attended the ones that matched their politics and priorities. I was raised in the conservative congregation initially, but we drifted to the lefty liberal one over time.
My Catholic mother when I transitioned was completely cool with it, tells me she’s so lucky to have a smart son, took it upon herself to inform extended family. Was just not a big deal to her, faith-wise. Definitely lost evangelical friends and family tho.
❤️ Smart MAMA to be grateful for her luck. The most vile anti—trans person I know is 100% atheist. All the ones I seem to meet are atheist. Unfortunately, being a bigot can be the choice of anyone. But it is also gross to put it into religions to make up a pretend excuse it is OK.
My high school best friend's family is mostly pretty Catholic (although there's an uncle who became evangelical after hitting rock bottom with alcohol), her grandma sang in the choir for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, for Cesar Chavez, etc and her brother is gay and the family supportive!
Honestly a lot of us are pretty liberal. It probably reflects the politics I have & the circles I run in, but I didn’t experience many conservative Catholics growing up. Just one family that was generally patriarchal & weirdly possessive of stuff like being alter servers or ushers. Such a weird flex
It’s wild to me I could be taught Catholicism as colonialist conspiracy —lthe Virgin of Guadalupe as an attempt to capture indigenous people, the suppressed truth is Jesus was Black and STILL BE CATHOLIC. ‘Oh BTW you can make it ANTICOLONIALIST.’ Catholics do contradictions like nobody’s business.
Yup, I see it. I started but didn't complete the RCIA process (both my parents were not religious but my mom's family origins are Cath). Adult converts are so weird but my family's parish has hosted the United Farm Workers since 1965 & Father Miguel is an Oscar Romero devotee so that was my example!
Your family’s parish sounds INCREDIBLE. So much important history! How inspiring!
Yup, I've heard from people about going to Mass in the 80s and 90s and seeing Cesar Chavez in the pews 😊
Amazing! The church I initially went to occasionally had Frank Sinatra attend and apparently he briefly held me in the parking lot when I was a baby, but Cesar Chavez as a congregant is waaaay more cool! How neat!
The irregular mass attendees might be people who don’t think the rules are the most important thing? But in another study the ones who prayed every day had the highest opinion of Pope Francis. The devout and the ‘mass attendees’ can diverge as well.
I can absolutely see that. I’d like to see the data on folks born into the Church versus converts. There’s a common joke about converts being the most intense, rule-focused Catholics. I’d like to see if that’s true and how it intersects with opinions identified in the article, if at all.
It would also be interesting to see if the US data trends differently than other countries. I would assume the US’ more secular culture of late would have some sort of impact on that kind of thing compared to, say, Spain or Italy.
There's a lot of truth in that joke, FWIW. Religious affiliation influence cultural practices, societal power, etc. Essentially, they are a major influence in your ethnicity, even if you ignore or even reject the theology. e.g., lots of atheist/secular Americans are incredibly culturally Christian.
Which manifests in a number of ways. Theologically, there are a *lot* of atheists whose atheism rests heavily (even solely) on specifically rejecting Christian dogma/practices. But also, things like the idea of "secular Christmas" stem from a cultural emphasis on Christian tradition.