Gay/French/Catholic singularity megathread

[derspiess]

I need to start taking hormones soon, so I don't grow old too fast.

Just don't take the wrong ones.

[Valmy]

I need to start taking hormones soon, so I don't grow old too fast.

Just don't take the wrong ones.

Homer! That medicine's not for you!

C'mon, Marge!  Maybe I'm not getting enough...[reads the label] estrogen.

[alfred russel]

Yeah and this is the difference I am talking about - in countries like Poland people continue going to the church and later bitch about stupid priests. Even more secular ones, who do not go to church each Sunday, tend to go on more important holidays (in addition to the said weddings, funerals, baptisms etc.).

In bigger cities, people also tend to practice "churching", i.e. attending the mass not in the church of their own parish, but in some nearby church where masses are more to their liking (e.g. because the priest is more liberal, or the mass is in Latin or whatnot).

I also assume that in the US people who feel more strongly about their spirituality but disagree with the denomination of their "birth" are more likely to convert to another Christian denomination - something like this is virtually unheard of in Poland.

Edit: Sorry, I misread your post. On the other hand there are also a lot of people in Poland who consider themselves Catholic but only go to Church like 3-4 times a year.

A big difference is that being Catholic is tied into being Polish. There isn't the same dynamic in the US.

[Sheilbh]

Another example are religion lessons which are compulsory at school and are taught very frequently by a priest or a nun - you can instead opt out to have "ethics" lessons but this brands you as a heretic/atheist/infidel (and in some smaller schools the lessons are taught by the same priest/nun as the religion lessons ). Poland actually lost a ECHR case because of this some time ago.

In my school in Scotland the local Minister from the Kirk used to come to do the odd religious education lesson or assembly. It always seemed like Batman as if a crucifix-light was turned on above the school because every time, a couple of minutes late the local Priest would arrive and remove the Catholic children for an appropriately Catholic lesson/assembly

We also had a small community of nuns. They would descend upon the hospital whenever a new Catholic was born. Once safely out of the maternity ward and at home, away from the more explicitly gynaecological, the priest would visit. I shamed my family when my little brother was born by mentioning that I liked Billy Connolly (a rather sweary Glaswegian comedian) and this withered 90 something Irish nun fixed me in her gaze and said 'now he's just vul-gar!'

Incidentally, a situation like this is even more pronounced in countries like Poland, Italy or Ireland than in the US - since so many people are raised Catholic and participate in all "rite of passage" rituals in the Catholic church (birth = baptism; puberty = first communion; adulthood = confirmation; marriage; funeral) it is fairly common for someone to go to church and consider themselves Catholic while not following any of the tenets.

I think that was dying out when I was growing up. I know church attendance was already down massively by that point so maybe my communities were strange but there were definitely people who'd grown up in the church and just continued going even after, say, their divorce and remarriage. And I still go from time to time.

And I think there was a slightly ethnic identity to Catholicism in the UK and probably the US which is different than exists in Poland or Italy or Ireland, but that the Catholic Church is part of what marks you out as Polish/Irish/Italian-American/British. When we moved to England from Scotland my family wouldn't go to the local Church because it had a big English flag which we found offensive so we'd go out of town. As it turns out that was because that priest had been appointed as someone who was particularly English, as the previous priest had routinely said memorial masses for Bobby Sands and other IRA hunger strikers

I also think the Church is onto a winner by having those rites of passage. For a start it makes parents go and not let their kids stop going until they've been confirmed at least (communion if they're liberal). But you have those formative experiences that kind of capture you when you're young and however far your beliefs move are still there. You remember dressing in a white shirt with a sash, or as a little bride for your First Holy Communion - or agonising over your confirmation name (even getting to choose another name was kind of cool). It gets the claws in you the way I imagine, say, a Bar Mitzvah does.

[dps]

I do wonder how it is being a practicing catholic and gay.  Having sex with another man is a sin, so he either refrains from sex or he seeks confession on a regulard basis.  Or he is untrue to his Faith.

A gay friend of ours had a bit of a problem over this recently while at a restaurant.  He was praying before eating, and 2 of the restaurant employees, who apparently knew him well enough to know that he was gay, but hadn't known that he was Catholic, started criticizing him in front of other customers, telling him that he wasn't "allowed" be both Catholic and gay.  Interestingly, apparently they didn't have a problem with him being either of those, just with him being both.  He filed a complaint with the management;  I'm not sure what actions were taken against the employees, but the management did apologize to him about the incident.

He told my wife that he'd heard the same thing before, but it had been from both more conservative-type Catholics, and from other, more militant gays, but this was the first time he' heard it from people who were neither Catholic nor gay.

[Martinus]

Well, that's bizarre from the customer service perspective, but objectively I do agree that being gay and Catholic (especially devout enough to pray before a meal in a restaurant - something like this would be seen as extremely bizarre in Poland, for example) is not compatible (or at least would make me think less of a person like this).

As Sheilbh said, religious upbringing puts these hooks in you - and I think if there is one positive thing about being gay, it is the fact that it offers you a unique opportunity to disentangle yourself from these hooks (since after confirmation you essentially have no common ground with the church until you die). To try to get back and insist on being a part of a club that doesn't want you as a member is not just stupid but also demeaning.

[The Brain]

Being gay is certainly better than being Catholic.

[Martinus]

Being gay is certainly better than being Catholic.

I don't know about better but definitely more fun. Especially if you are the Pope.

[Caliga]

I wonder if the current Pope is gay.  He seems less faggy than Benedict to me.

[grumbler]

I wonder if the current Pope is gay.  He seems less faggy than Benedict to me.

You put that so delicately.  I'm sure our gay members appreciate that.

[Caliga]

They know I love them all.

[grumbler]

They know I love them all.

TMI, butterfly.

[Tonitrus]

Yes but is he a catholic?

Why does an ambassador need to match the religion of the country they are sent to?

[dps]

I wonder if the current Pope is gay.  He seems less faggy than Benedict to me.

Well, the current one's not Polish.

[viper37]

being a part of a club that doesn't want you as a member is not just stupid but also demeaning.

they do want you.  Well, your money, first.  Yourself, if you avoid sin (sex outside of wedlock wich is only for procreation).  Or if you give tons of money, confess, swear you won't commit sin again.