What people here who demand Catholics leave their church don't understand.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

107. Just an addendum....

....since there have been so many responses to my OP, both negative and positive.

I can only speak from personal experience, but I have been going to mass almost every week for over three decades now. During that time period, I've been a member of several different parishes in various locales. There were multiple different pastors (head priests) at those parishes, and even more priests in general (associate pastors, visiting priests, etc.) who have celebrated mass on any given Sunday. Now the one point in the mass where the priest gets to wing it, not go off a script, is the homily (i.e. the sermon after the gospel reading.) Speaking only from personal experience, but still I think it's telling that over the past 30+ years of me being a Catholic:

There might be a homily on the topic of abortion maybe once a year, if that. That it might be mentioned on occasion is not all that surprising, since the church leadership has been very vocal on that topic (regardless of whether you agree with their position or not), but it's not a subject that is repeated all that frequently.

I never remember there ever being a homily on the subject of contraception. At all.

The only time I remember the issue of same sex relationships ever being brought up in a homily was in a beautiful sermon where the priest argued that there should be more tolerance and acceptance of those people who are gay. Basically it was the exact polar opposite of what a bigoted or homophobic screed would be.

I have never, ever, ever heard a priest give a homily where he has advocated the congregation to either vote for or against a specific political candidate. Never. I would have certainly remembered that as well, because I would have personally given the priest a piece of my mind had he ever tried to do something like that.

(Now, note I'm not saying that there are priests out there who may have given a homily on the above matters at some point in time. I'm sure someone will pop up and talk about the time he/she heard some priest rail against gay marriage or contraception. But given the rarity that I've personally ever come across anything of the sort in my many years as a Catholic, I seriously believe any such instances are quite the exception and not the rule.)

On the other hand, I've heard homilies over the years on occassions which have spoken against war, the death penalty, which have advocated for helping the less fortunate. I once heard a homily that said universal health care should be considered a fundamental human right. I've heard homilies where the priest has actually been critical of those in church leadership.

But the fact of the matter is that, if you go to mass this coming Sunday at any given church, chances are very high you will probably hear a homily about something as simple as forgiveness or helping the poor and less fortunate, or strengthening your faith, or not being too caught up in material wealth. Hardly inflammatory stuff at all. Actually some very great and positive stuff. Nothing that could be considered divisive or hateful in the least.

So what am I saying here? I'm saying that that's the Catholic Church that most ordinary rank and file Catholics come across. Most Catholics could care less about reading papal decrees, but they will be much more likely to listen in to what their local pastor has to say. And the notion that Sunday after Sunday, Catholics world wide are being subjected to harsh indoctrination of ultraconservative principles--that's ridiculous.

There's a reason why Catholics in America are representative of such a broad political spectrum, from conservative to moderate to liberal. While the Church may take an official stance on some politically charged topics, for the most part what gets communicated to ordinary Catholics on a weekly basis is not that but instead ordinary advice on life and faith. So individual Catholics will inevitably take positions on those political topics as whatever they see fit for themselves. But your ordinary Catholic Church in America is not like some of the most radical fundamentalist evangelical Christian churches that really serve as little more than a front for GOP talking points. (And I'm not just talking about preaching social conservatism; I'm talking about preaching things like how tax cuts are good or how gun control is bad or how lassiez faire capitalism is God's work, etc.)

I think people who think your ordinary Catholic Church serves as a local indoctrination center for ultraconservative thought might actually be pleasantly surprised at what they might find.