I grew up Catholic, no longer consider myself Catholic, but also don't consider myself a "recovering" Catholic.
I've seen a lot of misplaced criticism of the Catholic Church on this board. Even though I've found myself attracted to a different notion of spirituality than that found in the Church, there's simply a lot of ignorance about the Church itself. Prior to Vatican II which I believe occured in the 60s, the Church was vastly different than it is today. Believe it or not, the Church of today does not rely on guilt. If one went to a parish that worked on this principle, then I don't think that parish is working in conjunction with the Church's actual policy.
I had a great upbringing in a Catholic environment. I went to public Catholic grade school and an all boys Catholic high school complete with a uniform consisting of a jacket, slacks, tie and dress shoes. My qualms with Catholicism had more to do with organized religion than anything else.
I have a great respect with how Catholicism can reconcile the lessons of science, such as evolution, with its own beliefs. However, I have a great criticism with how the Catholic Church does not like to promote study of some great thinkers from its past - notably St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine among countless others.
Also, I'm disturbed by how some of the Church's doctrine is not actually based on solid science even though, at the time, this doctrine was believed to be based on science. In other words, at the time that science agreed with the Church's teachings, their reasons for accepting such doctrine was attributed to scientific reason, but when science progresses and comes to a different conclusion that conflicts with Church teachings, this is swept under the rug and kept quiet.
One such instance of this is the following. I consider myself pro-life although I don't think that very early term abortions are murder. In fact, my opinion on this matter was upheld by the Church. This was the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine on abortion, and was embraced by the Council of Vienne in 1312. The Council's cannon law has never been repudiated. In fact, it was only until 1869, with its basis in flawed scientific evidence, that abortion at any time for any reason became grounds for excommunication from the Church. The flawed evidence was the notion of an entity known as a homunculus. During this time, microscopes were becoming more readily available and the human sperm under the microscope appeared somewhat like a fully formed human being. The scientific theory behind the homunculi (sperm), was that they were in fact fully formed human beings, that housed further fully formed human beings, which housed further formed fully human beings, ad infinitum. Of course, murder is against Church teachings, and killing a homunculus which was thought to simply be a fully-formed but smaller human being, was just that. Now, I don't want to get into a debate about abortion, but this is the basis upon which the Church's complete ban on abortions is founded. It is to be noted however, that the Church has never endorsed the abortion of a fetal being - only abortion up until the moment that the fetus was fully formed (roughly the end of the first trimester).
Still, having been brought up my whole life, I don't think I would personally ever condone a woman I was involved with to have an abortion if she was pregnant by me. I guess some things never change but I'd try everything in my power 1) never to get myself into this situation and 2) if I did get myself in this situation, to provide alternatives to abortion for her.
But what the issue such as abortion is indicative of, is the Church telling people how to live one's life but not telling them to question how these teachings came about. I think it's a very important process to question your faith as it's really the only path to come to any meaningful spiritual peace during your life.
I'm sort of bouncing around a slew of topics, but in other issues, I don't think allowing priests to marry will solve the problem of priests who are child molesters. And I also don't think that those child molesting priests are the way they are because they are homosexual. There's a bunch of politics going around, but the simple fact of the matter is that child molesters are sick human beings and they need to be taken away from vulnerable children in society and treated before they can commit harm.
I've known several priests while I was a Catholic and some were spiritual duds who shouldn't have been working as a priest because they did nothing to enhance people's faith. And others were very good role models; great role models in fact, that touched countless people's lives. Just because I don't consider myself Catholic does not negate the fact that I consider these priests to be great role models and wherever possible, I try to live my life as they did theirs, helping other people.
The funny thing that I find, is that most people who criticise the Catholic church, do so for teachings that I personally did not leave the Church for. Whether it be pre-marital sex which I believe to be a nice ideal to acheive but am not promoting in any fashion or abortion, I believe I left the Church for reasons far greater. Simply put, the religion couldn't answer my questions with regards to the bigger questions in a satisfying matter. And slowly, I realized I believed in a different type of God than the one the Church believed in. So I left.
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