Pew report discovers cultural Catholics are a thing

[2xx1xy1JD]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... qus_thread (unbroken, news magazine)

9% of American Catholics say they are Catholic, but Catholicism is not their religion.

The only thing I found surprising about this was the fact that anyone else found it surprising. Then again, my background is very different from an American Protestant - my parents are from Montreal, and religion in Montreal was very much a reflection of one's ethnicity, not personal choice. Until relatively recently, Protestant and Catholic children went to different school, and ethnic areas are dense and sharply defined (for example, my parents attended a public high school that was about 99% Jewish).

Do others here find that this is a natural or easy concept to understand, or does the notion of a religious identity that doesn't match actual religious belief seem puzzling?

[felinefundie]

I definitely think cultural religion is a thing. I'm in a very heavily Mormon area, and it definitely shows in the all around culture. Even those who actively hate the LDS church still kind of identify with it, just because it's such an all-encompassing religion that it soaks into every aspect of your life.

Even though my mom wasn't ever active in the church, we have significant familial history within the church. My mom once told me that if Mormonism was an ethnicity, I would have more Mormon in my blood than a lot of people.

Additionally, my dad grew up in a very strict Catholic family. Even though he disagrees with every religion ever, if you ask him, he'll still call himself Catholic, just because he identifies with that group, not because he actually believes in a lot of what they say.

I guess what I'm trying to say is when you grow up in a heavily religious atmosphere, it's going to be a part of who you are, even if you aren't an active believer in the religion. Religions as a cultural thing makes perfect sense to me.

[Arete]

It is a very easy concept for me to understand, not only because I grew up and lived among Catholics/cultural Catholics, but also how my own ethnicity deals with the whole "race"/religion question.

Hell, I know lots of people who go to church weekly who don't even believe in God. They are not secretly hiding within the community. They are quite open that the church is an important pillar of the culture, and maintain ties.

[keen23]

My husband identifies his religion as Irish Catholic, though it's been 25+ years since he's gone to a mass just for the sake of going to a mass. He's been to a handful of weddings and funerals since then, but no religion without a social obligation otherwise. If you asked him, he wouldn't hesitate to tell you he's Catholic.

[Satan'sFortress]

Husband and I were both raised very Catholic, but are atheist now. We do still identify as Catholic in a way, though, because it did shape our outlook & values. Was married before to a guy who was never religious & it was much harder to mesh our lives. Weird, but it must have had a bigger effect than I had thought.

[julie paradox]

He quite liked nuns. Not that he was a, you know, left-footer or anything like that. No, when it came to avoiding going to church, the church he stolidly avoided going to was St Cecil and All Angels, no-nonsense C of E, and he wouldn't have dreamed of avoiding going to any other. All the others had the wrong smell - floor polish for the Low, somewhat suspicious incense for the High. Deep in the leather armchair of his soul, Mr Young knew that God got embarrassed at that sort of thing. But he liked seeing nuns around, the in the same way that he liked seeing the Salvation Army. It made you feel that it was all all right, that people somewhere were keeping the world on its axis.

This is totally normal for this side of the pond.

[Whoosh]

Not only is it easy for me to understand, but I actually believe the number of cultural xxxx religious members is far higher that even the best of researchers are currently recognizing. Of course my views on this are biased by my limited personal experience, but in my experience I know TONS of cultural Protestants who don't even fully understand what that means and who would therefore self-report as Protestant even if the question was "are you ACTUALLY Protestant or CULTURALLY Protestant". As a case example, I have had in depth discussions with my immediate family on this issue. All of them insist that they are Protestant and that is their religion and their belief system. However, several of them flat out scoff at the idea of the actual existence of a supreme being or an afterlife (one actually doesn't believe that ANYONE actually believes in these things). Others say things like "well I HOPE there is something after this - I don't want to think I would never see Nana again", yet they don't for a minute seem to think that Jesus was literally the son of God who walked the earth and died on a cross to save us.

This is actually something that really bothers me. I think there is a tendency for some segments of the population to see that a large majority of the population self-identifies as "Christian" or "Protestant" and then interpret that to mean that there is strong backing for their views and beliefs. In my opinion, this encourages some really unfortunate behavior.

[OkToBeTakei]

No I don't find it unusual at all and actually see it as the norm for my demographic. Schools are generally Catholic or Non-Denominational and out of the Catholic part you would be hard pushed to find Kenstistic around 50% of parents who send their kids to Catholic school as fully practising RC's.

Cultural religion is widely accepted and I would suggest it is the staunch identified religions who are in the minority.

I've said it before but it still remains the fact that despite the UK not having separation of Church and state it is in fact less of an issue than say the US where religion appears to be the catalyst for many issues. Schooling, Politics etc. It just does not have the same emphasis, it's not seen as particularly important. A politician identifying his religion and using it in any way tends to take a pretty sharp dive out of politics.

[ven]

i am living in a" cultural" catholic country in europe. We have days of from work who coincide with the catholic calender , my kid goes to a catholic school and about everyone who is not muslim is baptized at birth (it is a choice but everyone does it ). all weddings go via a church but in pratice we only see the church insides 3 times in life (birth -baptise, wedding , and funeral) .

[AliceInFundyland]

I identify culturally with Judaism. My father is Jewish, specifically of Long Island. He ended up an atheist. He described getting a bar mitzvah as something they did because all his friends did it and he wanted a party. My grandparents never did Hanukkah, but made sure there were no angels on the Christmas tree. I was introduced to matzoh crackers at a young age.

My dad's sister and two cousins had an extremely rare genetic disorder called familial dysautonomia that is almost completely exclusive to people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. It took a toll on the family.

The combination of the cultural stuff, plus my awareness of this part of my genetic heritage, has led me to identify with Judaism as a part of "me."

[tankgirl]

This is totally normal for this side of the pond.

Its Good omens, I love it!

On topic though, also agree. I married a cultural Catholic as well, though we see it differently, neither of us still practice, and only go to church now, for weddings and funerals.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Its Good omens, I love it!

On topic though, also agree. I married a cultural Catholic as well, though we see it differently, neither of us still practice, and only go to church now, for weddings and funerals.

I really like this and have never thought of it in quite that way. I haven't gone to church outside of weddings/funerals in quite some time, but it's definitely a Catholic Church I'm not attending.

I was surprised they did a survey on this because to me it's such a given its hard to imagine anyone not knowing how real the cultural Catholic phenomenon is.

For some of us it's a tough thing to parse out. What's the line between lapsed, non-practicing, cultural, etc.? If you ask me my religion without hesititation I'd say Catholic. What kind of Catholic would need to be in the form of an essay rather than multiple choice.

I do not believe in all of the official teaching of the church, by any stretch. I believe in more of the actual practices of the Catholics and parishes Ime than other denominations.

I believe in God even though I do not want to. The concept of God and eternal life scares the hell out of me (pardon the pun) and I would love to be an atheist as its a far more comforting concept to believe this is it. I want to believe that so badly and since I was little...but I can't unbelieve in God. I'm up on all the intellectual reasons of why faith doesn't make logical sense. I'm in agreement that it's not logical and I'm a logical person...but God remains as real to me as my body, my family, my car. He just is, to me, and I can't dissuade myself of that. For years I've tried to win myself over to atheism but apparently I'm either a super shitty lack-of-diety evangelical or just really stubborn.

I've been reading up lately on the psychology of faith as it must play some purposeful role in my psyche, my need to believe for my own even subconscious reasons - but I can't figure it out. It's crazy, I'm aware.

But my own religious batshit aside, the cultural thing is very real and ingrained in many people. Just anecdata but when I was younger my brother didnt think he believed in God anymore. Beyond feeling bad for how much that worried our mom it didn't bother me. During the times in was trying to break up with God myself I was kinda jealous he could make the leap, but his choice/his deal.

Otoh when one of my sisters left the Church and went fundy-lite it bothered me. Long after we had agreed to disagree and hadnt discussed religion for years the fact that she offended me. I know it sounds horrible to say and I'm not proud of that, but it had nothing to do with church or beliefs...it felt like a personal rejection of part of who we were. Like she made a conscious choice to be less "us" and more "them." Almost as if she'd disavowed our last name, tempers, and penchant for pie.

Humans are tribal and Catholiscism is all about tradition and rituals. its a sense of being something, similar to an ethnicity, which really resonates with many people.

[ADoyle90815]

I don't find that unusual at all, since my dad's family is culturally Irish Catholic, and while most in that family only go to church for weddings and funerals, some of what they do is very much influenced by being raised Catholic. One thing my dad definitely has is Catholic guilt where he blames himself for having high blood pressure, despite the fact that it runs in the family. My grandpa was even worse, as when he could no longer control his blood sugar levels, he quit eating if it got too high, despite having inherited type 2 diabetes. In the end, it was heart disease that was also genetic that killed my grandpa. My dad and uncles mostly attended Catholic schools, and some of them even served as altar boys, and it was later said that one of the biggest disappointments my grandpa had is that none of his sons became a priest.

I've also said before that the LDS church is basically a culture as well as a church, since the teachings do influence its membership. Those who are LDS tend to keep to their own church communities, even if they don't live in Utah or other heavily Mormon state. It's more of a practical thing since non-Mormons drink coffee, tea, and alcohol, plus there's a lot of things for adults that the LDS church warns against.

[Meg0]

I grew up in Rhode Island, I know tons of "cultural" Catholics. The amount of people who eat seafood for dinner on Fridays far surpasses the amount that goes to church. I still sometimes slip and say i am catholic even though i have been an athiest for years. I was just an "Irish Catholic" for so long and that aspect of life was a big part of my family life.

[47of74]

Over in Turkey "Cultural Muslims" is a thing. People are identified as Muslim because that's the religion their parents were and that they were brought up in to and as a result Turkey had put Muslim on their national ID cards. Turkey puts the religion the person follows (Islam, Christianity, etc) on the national ID cards and for many people they don't want to go through the hassle of having it changed.

Many Turks smoke and drink and may only be seen in a mosque on Fridays (which is their equivalent to Sundays), if that. With a lot of Turkish women you could pick them up and drop off in any US or western European city and you would not be able to tell the difference between them and any other woman in the city just by looking at them.

[rosethorne]

I'm familiar with the cultural Catholic thing. My husband is RC by birth, from a family full of both Irish and Italian Catholics (some only barely 2nd generation immigrants) on the East Coast.

From personal observation I can tell you that my husband knows next to NOTHING about his so-called religion. I'm more familiar with the ritual, and history of the Catholic mass than he is, and I'm Pagan! :?

But anybody who asks, or any religion section of a form he has to fill out will get the RC response from him, because where he's from it's an inherent part of identity at a cultural level. :angry-banghead: It drives me nuts, because a cornerstone of MY faith is to help care for the spiritual well being of my spouse. As such I try to do things that are expected by his religion, i.e. fish on Friday's during Lent, Mass on Sundays, observing High Holy days...and he often has no frame of reference for these things. :wtf:

Edited for Riffles

[latraviata]

It is a very easy concept for me to understand, not only because I grew up and lived among Catholics/cultural Catholics, but also how my own ethnicity deals with the whole "race"/religion question.

Hell, I know lots of people who go to church weekly who don't even believe in God. They are not secretly hiding within the community. They are quite open that the church is an important pillar of the culture, and maintain ties.

My late husband aka Germond sang in a catholic church choir for years. All the choir members including Germond were ex catholics and atheists.

As an atheist I have still some funny catholic habits e.g. lighting candles after seven at night because the saints arrive at seven. You can still wake me up for Gregorian chanting....

[latraviata]

Years ago my mother wanted me to go with her to christmas mass, a Mozart mass. Because of Mozart I agreed and so we went. I automatically did everything I was taught, making crosses, kneeling and the like. At some point mum hissed, please stop, for almost 10 years we don't do that anymore.....

[Monkeebrainz]

How much did they spend on this study that states the obvious?

[Eighth-of-eleven]

I am a "cradle Catholic" born, reared and thoroughly indoctrinated from birth through 18 years old when I left family and church. I felt like I did leave my culture behind after 12 years of Catholic school and daily mass, daily rosary at home, holy water and candles, statues of saints...in my home! Any other ex Catholics grow up with the Sacred Heart of Jesus painting over the piano in the living room? The Mary with the 7 swords of sorrow plunged into her chest painting? In the living room? (My sibs and I called them the bleeding body parts paintings)

My siblings and I still joke about my mother's propensity to create little random alters on any available horizontal space, if it was bare ledge soon a small saint's statue would appear, then a vase with flowers, mass cards, etc. Oh, we also had the our lady of Guadalupe painting on the wall as well...our house was a Catholic shrine basically.

My mother always rattled because she wore a scapular, (and made us wear them) a sodality medal, st. Christopher medal, and st. Francis medals. She was a 3rd order Franciscan also, so she wore a small rope belt under her clothes. And the never ending collection of rosaries...of all kinds!!! We all had our own as well.

We went to mass every day at school, and since my dad was the Catholic school janitor, we cleaned the school and the church with him on Saturday mornings and in the summer. I LIVED at the church of my childhood.

My mother played the organ and piano for the church and all of us, the ten of my siblings and i, were musically trained so we sang and either played piano or other instruments for the church as well.

It was an entirely Catholic upbringing, all day, every day. Every so often I go to Christmas eve mass at some Catholic church for these things: the music, the smell of warm candle wax, church incense, evergreens, mingled perfume, the murmur of repeated rote prayers by the congregation and the drone of the priest reciting the mass I have heard a thousand times before.

I am totally not Catholic atcall, 100% gone, but I do miss some of the comfort of the cultural setting, even though some of the realities behind it were dreadful for me personally.

Edited because I can't spell, the usual bad grammar, still there, but I've done what I can!!11!! :-)

[sawasdee]

Cradle Catholic also - my home very similar to eighth of eleven except we had that picture of Jesus that if you stared at it the eyes opened, on the living room wall, and also Pope John XXIII. My mother had a special devotion to St Anthony, so we had an altar to him, as well as the BVM. The crucifix above my bed had a luminous Jesus..

Like HNIB, I want to be an atheist, and have been trying for nearly 50 years. Sadly, there is this little cradle bit inside of me that always whispers "I don't really mean it , God". So culturally my Irish Catholic mother still rules, though the last time I went to church was her funeral 16 years ago, and if asked, would still identify as RC.

[Clementine]

I think the term "cultural Christian" applies for the majority of people in the Nordic countries. A majority of the population belongs to a Christian church, but few people go to religious services. But we celebrate the Christian holidays and it's the church we turn to for weddings, funerals and baptisms. I'd say that our churches are more of a carrier of traditions and culture than a house for worship for us. Still very important to us, although not necessarily because of our personal faith.

[bea]

I'm a "cultural Catholic" - my maternal grandparents left Ireland in part because of the Protestant/English police oppression, my paternal grandparents were country transplants to Chicago who were very devout.

My dad was a Catholic priest for 17 years, in line for a bishopric when he left and applied to be laicized. What no one noticed (helloooooooo, Cardinal Cody) is that my dad was having an affair with a nice nun from Manhattan. My dad was actually in charge of signing papers that allowed nuns to leave the convent. He signed the nice social worker nun's papers, left a few weeks later, was granted a release from his vows by the Pope (JPII stopped that process -until then, you could be legitimately released from Holy Orders and become a layperson again AND remain Catholic). He married the nice nun, and a year later - tada, yours truly.

Anyway, I was raised Catholic church every Sunday, Catholic school, etc. But my parents were very clear about the fact that this was how our family and culture (Irish-American Catholic) interpreted God. We lived in a heavily Jewish community, and I went to synagogue with neighbors, as well as Episcopal services with a friend's family. This was how *we* did things, according to my parents, but God was so big that there were all kinds of ways to worship, none of them wrong.

My mom died when I was 12 and we stopped going to church. My dad didn't really ever forgive God for her death.

Anyway, I was married in the Church and both my kids are baptised, but the Catholicism my kids have learned is not really religious, but cultural. I want my kids to have a frame of reference for learning about religion, and Catholicism isn't a bad paradigm - we lean more towards the liberation theology end of the spectrum. But I don't think any of us in this house are literal believers in transubstantiaion or the Trinity. Our culture is the Irish-American Catholicism one. Religious beliefs are more personal (my youngest believes in reincarnation).

And then to make it even wackier, I practice folk magic and witchcraft and have incorporated that into the kids' religious life.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Cradle Catholic also - my home very similar to eighth of eleven except we had that picture of Jesus that if you stared at it the eyes opened, on the living room wall, and also Pope John XXIII. My mother had a special devotion to St Anthony, so we had an altar to him, as well as the BVM. The crucifix above my bed had a luminous Jesus..

Like HNIB, I want to be an atheist, and have been trying for nearly 50 years. Sadly, there is this little cradle bit inside of me that always whispers "I don't really mean it , God". So culturally my Irish Catholic mother still rules, though the last time I went to church was her funeral 16 years ago, and if asked, would still identify as RC.

To the bolded - that is hysterical and completely terrifying! When I was little I went through a stage where I'd change in the bathroom because I didn't want Jesus (on the crucifix in my room) to see me naked. If he could look back can you imagine the mess I'd be today?!

I once asked my gramma why she converted to Catholisim for Grandpa and she said it was simple - she couldn't have cared less and his parents couldn't have cared more. Her Presbyterian upbringing never stood a chance against a hardcore mob of Irish Catholics.

The depth of belief aside there is comfort in ritual. My mom was a devout Catholic all of her life until she was excommunicated for divorcing my father - a very painful decision for her. She went fundy lite later (Evangelical Free - women can work and wear pants while they practice saving souls through the art of relentless badgering) and when she passed we respected her wishes and had the service at her church. I realized then how crucial those rituals are when you're in the most difficult parts of life - they let you auto pilot and comfort with familiarity. Her arrangements were devoid of that comfort for us so it was flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure out what we were supposed to do making it worse. (And no, they don't stop trying to save you when a loved one is dying. Or at their funeral. It's never an inappropriate time try to correct others' belief systems, so they think.)

When my dad passed a few months later that part of it was much easier. Call the priest, arrange the mass...done. Auto pilot.

Point is I don't think it matters what your rituals are, if they give you comfort they can help during the rough times. I've no doubt going Catholic would be as unsettling for many as it was for us trying to figure out how fundy-lite services work - I just think for a lot of us it comes to sticking with what you know.

[47of74]

I once asked my gramma why she converted to Catholisim for Grandpa and she said it was simple - she couldn't have cared less and his parents couldn't have cared more. Her Presbyterian upbringing never stood a chance against a hardcore mob of Irish Catholics.

The depth of belief aside there is comfort in ritual. My mom was a devout Catholic all of her life until she was excommunicated for divorcing my father - a very painful decision for her. She went fundy lite later (Evangelical Free - women can work and wear pants while they practice saving souls through the art of relentless badgering) and when she passed we respected her wishes and had the service at her church. I realized then how crucial those rituals are when you're in the most difficult parts of life - they let you auto pilot and comfort with familiarity. Her arrangements were devoid of that comfort for us so it was flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure out what we were supposed to do making it worse. (And no, they don't stop trying to save you when a loved one is dying. Or at their funeral. It's never an inappropriate time try to correct others' belief systems, so they think.)

When my dad passed a few months later that part of it was much easier. Call the priest, arrange the mass...done. Auto pilot.

Point is I don't think it matters what your rituals are, if they give you comfort they can help during the rough times. I've no doubt going Catholic would be as unsettling for many as it was for us trying to figure out how fundy-lite services work - I just think for a lot of us it comes to sticking with what you know.

If I ever get married my mom does not have too much room to complain as to who it is. Her mother was a divorced Catholic with a young daughter who married my non-Catholic Grandpa. They were made to have the wedding in the rectory of the church. Following the marriage Grandma then had mom's elder brother, her, and her remaining siblings. That marriage lasted a lot longer than her first marriage to a Catholic did until Grandpa died in 1980. So if history repeats and I marry a divorced non Catholic the second she complains I can just remind her of her parents.

At my great-uncle's funeral the priest made sure to remind everyone that communion was only for the "good" Catholics. I think he did that because not all of my great uncle's children stayed in the RC church and some of them had left the church as I had in 2012. This priest was wearing an anti-abortion button at the burial ceremony. So glad we didn't have him at either of my Grandparents funerals. Mom didn't like him much either.