Post B7vlVPDIaLUQQu6qJ6 by bluestarultor@tech.lgbt
(DIR) More posts by bluestarultor@tech.lgbt
(DIR) Post #B7vRU4o4yPqJlmOyzg by Paradox@raru.re
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@ people who have experience with Catholic clergy (and ideally also Protestant clergy for comparison)What's the vibe? I wasn't raised Catholic (non denominationally Prot), so I'm curious what they're like.Also for writing purposes.
(DIR) Post #B7vWb6fWwqFvLJZhbc by lapis@elekk.xyz
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@Paradox I was sort of raised Catholic (basically, raised catholic for a bit, few factors cause my parents to divorce, and my mom was no longer interested in church and not just because it's hard work being a single mom. It's more like relatives on her side became concerned for my soul and stepped in to take me to mass and then pay tuition for the catholic school they wanted me to go to. )So I Went to Catholic school for a few years (which is what made me decide to not get confirmed and leave the church). It can vary wildly, at least in the US.There's a lot of people still mad about Vatican II. I am not nearly old enough to remember Vatican II lol I just know some stuff from my dad (who either has faint memories of it or got told about it from older siblings, one of these things would requite an antisemitism CW for the context and doctrine as an FYI) but one of the big changes people were really mad about was that you had to say the whole mass in the vernacular instead of Latin. Until I think Francis clamped down a few places around here would do special occasion masses (like a midnight christmas mass) in Latin. I get the impression people who weren't even Catholic would go for vibes alone.But yeah. Hell a whole right-wing sect super mad about Vatican II just got excommunicated today ( https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/2/breakaway-catholic-group-condemned-sacraments-deemed-illicit-by-vatican )There's good there's bad. ( I can go into detail but it will require cws. Nothing super bleak aside from two things about deaths, just not stuff I feel comfortable mentioning without a CW field). I will mention with some irony it was usually the catholic laypeople teachers I had the most trouble with in school (though one of my elementary grade school teachers was a nun and she was awful aside from one really good opinion she had)I should also mention for context because I am unsure if you are USican or not: churches are not supposed to interfere with elections (by telling you who to vote for) or they can lose their tax exempt status.When I was still in catholic school I heard a few stories during one of the (the second maybe?) W-presidential elections of priests not in my town but elsewhere in the midwest explicitly telling people to vote for Bush. I can't remember if those priests got defrocked or simply shuffled away.If you want specifics let me know, I just wanted to give you fair warning before I typed a whoooole lot about church doctrine at you, especially since I don't think we know each other (I have only been awake for a little bit so if we're mufos on like my wandering shop alt or something I am so sorry for flaking!) And especially since like I said some of it requires CWs so I especially didn't want to type that at you without you opting in, you know?
(DIR) Post #B7vXKZMB8MmDLdCYJk by Paradox@raru.re
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@lapis First, thanks a bunch for being so willing to speak at length about this stuff. ⭐Don't worry, I haven't met you before.Also, yeah, feel free to discuss whatever you're comfortable with and CW it as you like. I'm down to listen to anything regarding this topic. ^_^Also that thing about churches not being allowed to influence votes is particularly useful to me. I'll go into detail later if you like, but the gist there is the churches form a power triangle with corporations and local government in my story. Well, there's significant focus on it, anyway.(ps on a flight right now so I'll reply later today, and yes I'm USian)
(DIR) Post #B7vclriDUpwvrkLQyu by lapis@elekk.xyz
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@ParadoxDefinitely tell me more about your book later, I'm quite curious! Have a good flight!Vatican II according to my Dad (I'm sure there was other stuff) Basically my understanding is BEFORE Vatican II the common consensus (or doctrine? ) was that The Jews ™️ were to blame for Christ's Death (which I'd always found weird because it's like yes you could argue that a lack of unity against their oppressor (the Romans) lead to Jesus' death but he was executed as an enemy of the state-- and half the shit in the gospels about Pilate bending over backwards to try to not kill Jesus: no historical records or basis for it. Seemingly made up, possibly to make Roman officials less pissed off. Also, you know, even if it had been the fault of the oppressed Jewish people I always found it weird to blame their descendants hundreds / thousands of years later? But also the church does infant baptisms (probably also to pad numbers) because my soul is tainted from the moment I am born if not earlier, because of Adam and Eve eating fruit they shouldn't have????? So yeah. there's that so through that twisted lens I could see the logic of blaming all THE JEWS ™️ (not that I endorse it of course)But I guess after Vatican II was done one of the big take-aways was "We cannot blame Jewish people, especially Jewish people who are you know, alive today instead of over a thousand years ago, for the death of our lord and savior". I know this because he shared an anecdote of someone on the playground (he went to a catholic school at this time I believe?) going up to A/ The(?) Jewish kid and saying something along the lines of "The pope says we're supposed to forgive you for killing Jesus" like this "YOU'RE WELCOME" sort of tone?????which I imagine would feel a weird conversation to have at any age (for the Jewish kid I mean).But for my personal experiences.For context, I was bullied, both by students and teachers at this school (I was not diagnosed aa autistic until adulthood, but kids can always smell what's different about you). I don't think it's relevant beyond explaining "I spent lots of long hours in the solace of the internet". Anyway, at some point I started finding out about Trans people via webcomics (I think it might have been Venus Envy that I first learned about?)And I was full of sympathy, though I did not recognize myself in this story (as I am more non-binary than a binary trans man or something you know?) but I still believed, so next time a priest was in for us to ask religious questions about I happened to ask about trans people, because I absolutely believed these stories of trans people on the internet, why would they lie about that (and why would there be so many other comics from other people of similar experiences unless at a minimum some of them were true) but my concern was I had been told at some point (probably due to the omnipotence thing) that God Didn't Make Mistakes.And I got an answer, I don't think it would fly today given the ways trans narratives have changed (well considering how bad the church currently is about trans / nb / gender-non-conforming people..... maybe it still would) that was uh, REALLY GOOD for the time at least, and did provide me comfort even if I didn't fully understand why (I did not realize I was non-binary until like my mid-twenties at the earliest) "God does not make mistakes, but Mother Nature sometimes does".Before all that though, I'm gonna go back to talk about death.at some point, our elementary school nun teacher thought it would be a good idea to tell us (a bunch of us loved animals especially, we had a few Horse Girls ™️ In the class though I don't think they actually HAD horses, just liked them) that oh by the way, your pets aren't going to heaven. They have "mortal" souls and humans have "immortal souls"like I GET that this is part of doctrine (you will often see articles about Francis and now I think Leo deciding not to be huge dicks and tell small children their pets aren't going to heaven, which don't get me wrong, I think that's wonderful they didn't take the opportunity to be a HUGE ASSHOLE to usually grieving children, but it's also like, the bar is so low on the ground for popes not being The Worst ™️ that it's buried underground)But my point is. Somehow she expected it to go over really well with these small idk... 11-year-olds?It did not. virtually everyone in the classroom was crying, and she had to backtrack and be like "well.... we don't always know what god plans maybe they are in heaven LESSON OVER"But also.I don't know if this is still the case, but at least at that time, Church Doctrine stated that Suicides were considered a mortal sin and you would not go to heaven (my understanding is that in a lot of cases if a Catholic dies by suicide, they will write down a different cause of death because it's SO stigmatized and I'm not 100% but I don't think you can have your funeral in the church, possibly not buried on hallowed catholic ground if you do that. I am not entirely certain and I am taking this from some IIRC Emile Durkheim research regarding religious beliefs / community and suicide) but she outright said she disagreed with that, because she understood that in most if not all suicide cases, that person is not in their right mind, and she found it a cruel doctrine to believe in, so she had personally discarded it.So as much as I have like zero good memories of this woman I have to begrudgingly give her credit for this.More about the vote stuff: I remember asking about it the next time the priest was there to teach us about god. I'm pretty sure it was either well known or one of the cases of "vote for W Bush" during a mass or sermon or something was caught on camera (though constant video recording was not common yet) I asked about it, and I was told an absolutely bullshit story about how that priest asked people to vote with their conscience and that's ALL he said. which... was not true. at all. I'm pretty sure US Tax law allows you mention THAT, it's more endorsing candidates that's the thing that can get you in trouble with the IRS. And I was also pretty sure the Church would NOT have given a shit if that had been ALL he had said.Anyway, lying to children is okay?Okay, one weird thing. For context as you may have guessed in the time I lived in a (Different) Republican Red area. It was a catholic school. Which for the record: Catholic Doctrine even then said "Old Earth is real, and Evolution is okay to believe in as long as you believe God directed it" which I think is basically reasonable.For some reason the schoolboard of the catholic school despite this, made us waste a week of science classes (science was basically the only class I enjoyed possibly because the teacher wasn't a huge asshole to me) watching what's his name Kent Hovid I think? "Educational" bullshit about "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Design"I could recognize it was basically bullshit propaganda. For the record this was probably like 20 years ago and I'm STILL mad at the waste of a week.After the wasted week of those videos we had to write an essay on whether or not we agreed with those videos. I wrote a paper that cited church doctrine about how it's bullshit and old earth and evolution are real. I got an A.I think that's everything. If I think of something else I'll let you know.
(DIR) Post #B7vjUHI0MTaPeue3Yu by Paradox@raru.re
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@lapis My first thought is, it's weird they blame(d) the Jews about that instead of maybe the Italians. One of them actually killed Jesus, the other was more or less forced to watch.Also in my experience with Protestants, not one of them ever blamed someone for his death. It was considered part of God's plan and more of a necessary tragedy than anything.I am amused that lady decided it was very important kids know their beloved pets weren't going to heaven. Maybe she never had any or didn't like them much.So I'm guessing that naming someone in the context of endorsing them is not good, but maybe endorsing someone's policies without naming them is okay? I know churches have historically accepted money from conservative politicians to endorse their policies and it has swayed votes, but I'm guessing it comes down to a) the way they do it and b) whether anyone has proof/decides to snitch at all.In the story, the setting is a fairly large city with a metropolitan area. It's got its own archdiocese (or in one), so to complement the assortment of major corporations that do business in it and the local government structure, I wanted to throw in a Catholic church and 2-3 Protestant ones. Give them different personalities so they're not completely bad (I'm not trying to decry religion, just highlight the good and bad texture of their culture), so I asked cuz I wondered how much bishops and other major clergy in Catholicism differed in the things they believed or cared about and how they performed their duties, I suppose.So this has been very informative. ⭐
(DIR) Post #B7vjrpX3DL80WMugiG by lapis@elekk.xyz
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@Paradox happy to help! I hope you have a wonderful time writing your book(And yeah to be clear I 100% agree it's the romans' fault it's more like if I twist my brain to find some logic I can ALMOST see (shitty) arguments for why it is the Jewish people of the times' partial fault but it's like no he was 100% killed as an enemy of the empire / state just because rome eventually popularized christianity doesn't really change that Rome killed him???? )
(DIR) Post #B7vlVOxhWL0reWoNzk by bluestarultor@tech.lgbt
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@Paradox Every priest is different, honestly. Some are the kindest people you could meet, the type that could forgive Judas; one of them I had would've been a Hell's Angel if he hadn't felt the call. Had a motorcycle and everything and was kind of a pain in the ass, "my way or the highway," sometimes going behind people's backs like he did posting applications at the Conservatory to replace our bitchy choir director (she found it there and cried). That could be kind of funny sometimes, but he alienated a lot of people despite liking my family well enough. Another was experiencing extreme culture shock coming to the US and ended up super homophobic because that's what he chose to blame our decadence on. Others are just plain terrible people I would not share air with again, fire and brimstone, "ignore the liberal pope" types.But none of them would have been there if they didn't believe strongly. Whether they even believe in the same God is another matter.
(DIR) Post #B7vlVPDIaLUQQu6qJ6 by bluestarultor@tech.lgbt
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@Paradox To clarify a bit, not everyone actually sees them up close and personal like I did. Most people kind of show up for an hour a week and don't otherwise engage. My family was engaged in various forms of service for several years and that gave us more opportunity than most. That trailed off as things started to get nasty politically.
(DIR) Post #B7vlVPPhqDPl3Nuke8 by Paradox@raru.re
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@bluestarultor I can relate to the former. I never cared for church. Very thankful for your insight. ⭐I don't even know what a conservatory is for them.
(DIR) Post #B7vo2wn8xmXi2Qzsg4 by bluestarultor@tech.lgbt
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@Paradox Oh, no, the local music conservatory across town. XD
(DIR) Post #B7vo2wxQLYlYYJo5hY by Paradox@raru.re
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@bluestarultor Ah, so he was soliciting the conservatory for a new choir director. That's interesting.I'm sure there are many types of priest. Though I do wonder how spread out the variety is.