Not sure if this should be in this forum or the holiday forum, but whatever, here it goes. I'll be spending Christmas with my Catholic parents. I'm a lapsed-Catholic-current-deist and I'm worried about telling them that I'm uncomfortable going to Christmas mass. I've been not a Catholic for a while now and they know I don't go to regular mass or anything but it's been kind of assumed that I've been doing the four times a year thing and I have been. Last year I kind of put my foot down, said that I didn't want to go but then backed down because I really just wanted to keep peace in the family on Christmas Eve. I hadn't been back in the church until a couple of weeks ago, when my brother got confirmed and the bishop used his homily to rail against gay marriage. :dry: Since my brother getting confirmed, I've come out to them, but I'm still worried about how to approach this. Basically, how do I put my foot down with my parents on this issue without pissing everyone off during the holiday?
You believe in God, that should be of some comfort to them, its just the mechanics you disagree on. I'm pretty much in the same place belief wise. I have the settled view that God exists and I don't need a multinational organisation between him and me. I'd just explain to them that you don't agree with the established views of the Catholic church and think it is disrespectful to keep up the facade. I've not been a mass goer since I was around 14.
That's a tough one. I'm a recovering Catholic myself, and so I went through some of this. My parents were unhappy with me leaving the Church, but they certainly understood why. My parents do like it if I attend midnight Mass or Easter Mass with them, and sometimes I do. But then again, I haven't heard any anti-gay rhetoric in their churches for the last twenty years. If I did, I'd simply stop going, and they'd know why. You can always point specifically to the cause. "Last time I went, the priest said some things I found really hateful, and that's completely turned me off to that church." Lex
I still go once in a while for family events. I just a) don't go up for communion and b) if the priest says something dumb in the homily, sass about it with my brother later.
I find it incredible that a bishop would use a confirmation homily to that purpose, and I come from a Roman Catholic background myself. I think you should be honest, tell them if you can that you found it uncomfortable sitting in church with such a homily, but that you don't hold their faith against your family, that your staying at home is not meant in any way against their personal connections with religion and what it means to them.
