Welcome

Welcome to the former Catholic forum. I invite you to peruse the site to see if any of the information based on my experiences being raised Catholic might be useful to you. I created this site with former Catholics in mind. If you are a practicing Catholic for whom the rituals and teachings of the Church are meaningful, I am happy for you. Rest assured that I am not trying to convince you otherwise. However, this website is intended for former Catholics and others who were wounded through their experiences with the Church. It is with these people that I want to share my ideas, my experiences of being raised Catholic, and my struggles to free myself from the programming I received from the Church. I consider myself to be in recovery from Catholicism and invite you to dialogue with me if this description fits you or is helpful to you.

Background

I am no longer a practicing Catholic, although I was baptised and raised Catholic. I attended parochial schools throughout my formative years, beginning at St. Benedict's Elementary School, continuing through Central Catholic High School, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Notre Dame. I eventually attended the Yale Divinity School to sort out my confusion about spirituality after struggling to integrate my Catholic faith with the scientific perspective I developed during my education. While attending Divinity School, I drifted away from Catholicism as I explored ways to authentically experience God and spirit for myself. When I quit practicing Catholicism, I thought I would leave my experiences with the Church and its teachings behind me. As I discovered over the next thirty years, I unwittingly carried all the old teachings and dogma with me as unconscious programming in my psyche.

As I've matured and have attempted to express myself creatively, I have found the old programming still operating in me even though I consciously do not agree with it. For example, I was taught as a child that by nature I am basically evil and must overcome my natural malevolent tendencies in order to be a good person and live a happy life. Can you see how this programming interferes with my adult, conscious belief that I am essentially a good and trustworthy person? I particularly am aware of this conflict when I try to express myself creatively. I gradually recognized how the programming I received from the Church convinced me, albeit unconsciously, that there's something "wrong" within me and that very self-doubt makes it difficult for me to trust my creative impulses. How can I trust an impulse that arises from the very realm in me that my parents, teachers, confessors, spiritual advisors, and professors were convinced was evil and, therefore, not to be trusted? The good news is that my Catholic training makes creative expression difficult for me rather than some fundamental lack of creative resources in me. The challenge, of course, is to consciously come to terms with this unconscious programming so that I can creatively express myself.

What's available on the former Catholic forum.

The bold letters in the following paragraphs correspond to the menu buttons on the left of these pages that link to the page being described.

That's what this site is all about. My purpose here is to communicate the impact that being raised Catholic has had on my life. I discuss this impact from various perspectives (growing up, quitting) to try to communicate the complex effect my childhood programming has had. I share my struggle to break free of the limiting worldview which I brought with me into adulthood as an ongoing process because I do not consider myself free of this programming. I devote an entire section to Jesus because I have found that my beliefs about who he is and what he taught in the past profoundly influence my ability to be myself in the present. On another page, I describe what spiritual life has become for me as a way of discussing spirituality that's independent of Catholic doctrines. I just had to include a section on humor because I have enjoyed so many jokes, stories, and articles that have come my way about Catholicism and religion. In addition to enjoying a good laugh, I find humor a great antidote to the sour and serious discipline inflicted on my childhood by the Church as well as an easy step toward freedom from the Church's programming. I am making a list of the books (reading list) that I have found most helpful to me in this process of breaking free from the unconscious Church. I plan to arrange the books by categories and to write brief descriptions of what I found useful in the book. Let me know if you know additional books that seem relevant to you. I provide some biographical information about myself (about richard) in case you might like to know a little about me.

At the same time, I invite you to share your understanding and experiences with me. I have created this site to open a dialogue and will include your thoughts and ideas on the discussion page if they seem useful to me. I look forward to hearing from you (contact) and reading what you would care to share with me about your experience with being raised Catholic, how that interacts with your adult life, and what helps free you from the programming we received.

Richard Noll