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The official stance of the Catholic Church is that sexual orientation is (at least in the vast majority of cases) in-born and cannot be wilfully changed, and as such being homosexual is not an inherent sin, although homosexuals are called to a life of celibacy.

...I was raised Catholic and on the rare occasion that I do attend any sort of church service, it's usually Catholic mass. I don't agree that homosexuals are automatically called to a life of celibacy (some may be, but the same goes for heterosexuals in that respect) and I'm also not in agreement with some other Catholic teachings as well, so I consider myself a "lapsed" Catholic (though still Christian). But even so, Catholicism tends to be the flavour of Christianity I'm generally the most comfortable around, I'm sure largely because of my upbringing. That combined with the fact that although I am more or less more of the wavy-gravy progressive type person of faith, I'm still a bit of a stickler for tradition in a lot of ways, and Catholicism has more than enough tradition to go around.

One can only imagine what I'd be like if I'd been raised Jewish. lol



...that's the second time I've made a "how much weirder I'd be if I was Jewish" joke is the span of about three days in this guild. I'm pretty sure the other one had to do with guilt-tripping.

I'm not the slightest bit antisemitic, I swear. It's just that Catholicism and Judaism share a lot of cultural stereotypes that I like to poke fun of within myself and my family, mostly.

And it is totally true that the only group of people who care more about tradition and are better at guilt-tripping than Catholics are Jews. Which makes historical sense, come to think of it. Catholics inherited a lot of cultural stereotypes from the Jews. Sort of like hand-me-down clothing that nobody ever actually wanted in the first place but have been in the Monotheism family for so long that nobody has the heart to throw them away.

...okay, I've milked that analogy clean of what little comedic value it had in the first place. I'm done.

I really need to get some sleep. My crazy has an easier time taking my brain for a walk when I'm sleep-deprived. For anyone who was able to read through all that and make sense of it, kudos. I'm going to stop typing now.

You're absolutely right.

One thing that really sort of rubs me the wrong way is the way a lot of Christian churches seem to be trying to make Jesus and Christianity seem "hip and cool" for teens with things like rock bands playing during services and stuff like that. I don't really find any moral fault with it, and I guess if that's the way some people prefer to worship, that's fine, but it just sort of seems awfully...pandering to me. You shouldn't choose to be Christian because it's hip and cool, you should choose to be Christian because you believe it to be the Truth and because you desire a personal relationship with God.

The other day one of my friends was showing me this comic book that I guess was aimed at teens and was supposed to teach conservative Christian morals in a "fun" way that kids could "really relate to," and it was just...awful. I had trouble believing that this was something that wasn't a joke and was actually supposed to be taken seriously.

I think kids are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for, and I see a lot of this rock concert comic book propaganda to be almost sort of insulting to young people of faith. Adults seem to think that kids will turn their backs on their faith if they don't try to dress it up to make it seem "cool," but I don't think we often give kids and teens enough credit. It is true that many teens will turn away from the faith they're raised with, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're never going to come back to the fold, and talking down to them and trying to bring them back/keep them in the faith by pandering to them isn't going to help. It's normal for teens to start to question the beliefs and values they were raised with. Starting to think for yourself and not just automatically jumping on board with everything your parents say or want you to do is a part of growing up and becoming and independent adult.

I went through a long period of questioning my faith. For a while I identified as agnostic, then as atheist, and then I started exploring other religions and philosophical beliefs. In the end, I ended up coming back to Christianity. It wasn't the devout Catholicism I was raised with, but it was what I'd found to be the Truth, and I'm glad that I had the chance to explore other ways of thinking and find my own way, because now I'm a believer not just because it was how I was raised, but because I've had my own personal spiritual awakening that has made my faith deeply personal and profound.

....I realise I'm totally off-topic from the OP. I tend to ramble. It's a problem.