A defense of Catholicism. Kind of

From peoplesforum:

DH: Yeesh... Catlick skool.

Hot and cold running guilt and hellfire. No young mind should be exposed to that in their formative years.

Andrea L.:

My childhood parish had a priest who left to get married, and folk masses. My parents didn't send us to Catholic school, either. Growing up, my uncle was taught by Jesuit priests, my mom was taught by nuns barely out of the convent, and she wasn't inclined to put me and my sister into the same situation. Didn't hurt that the local public school district was one of the best in the area.

Chicklet: My mother went to Catlick school. No daughter of hers was going to have the same fate.

 

If I may speak out in defense of us pussy groomers--

Catholics are all full of mindfucked shit, it's true, but on the plus side all that guilt adds a tinge of flavor to something like, say, sex--you don't know the thrill of doing the dirty when all your childhood training tells you it's wrong. That's a spice worth a thousand habaneros, I think.

Also, all that bloody religion (and it's steeped in blood--from that statue of a tortured man they stick up in their churches to the actual drinking and eating of the blood and flesh of said man--that's not a symbolic act; in our eyes that's the real deal) gives rise to some interestingly fruitful neuroses.

Alfred Hitchock was that rare Catholic Englishman (and you know he was affected, read: borderline crazy). Same with Anthony Burgess and Graham Greene--Englishmen who converted to Catholicism out of fascination with their obsessions and blood rites. Of the more interesting American filmmakers may I point to Abel Ferrara and Martin Scorsese--lapsed Catholics both. And John Woo is just chock full of Catholic imagery.

And it isn't us Cath'lics that are really to blame for things like that Last Temptation of Christ protest or this Passion of the Christ bullshit--it's those damned Fundamentalist Christians. They're the tight-sphinctered morons raising up a stink. Us Catholics (the more intelligent ones anyway, and for the record, I've lapsed in my faith) tend to take a more liberal view, artistically speaking anyway.