Catholic guilt

The word 'guilt' is often compounded with the word 'Catholic.' You hear a lot about 'Catholic guilt,' even by people who are not Catholic. It is a term used pejoratively.

What are the things that most people resent having 'guilt' imposed on them for?

Generally they are basic sins:

• Promiscuity
• Drugs
• Alcoholism
• Abortion
• Birth control devices
• Divining
• Divorce
• Stealing
• Dishonesty
• Cheating people
• Hypocrisy

Well here is the bad news for anyone who is considering following Baba's teaching. Baba spoke disparagingly about the spiritual, psychological, social and material destructive consequences of all these actions.

Baba is aware that we all constantly make mistakes, and in fact that is the orthodox real teaching of Roman Catholicism, ever since Augustine wrote his Confessions, and mused on the nature of evil and sin. Yes there is of course forgiveness in both teachings too. Baba said that the moment you ask God for forgiveness you are forgiven.

I find it funny that people today want to do away with guilt, but not the sin. They want the sin without the guilt. For surely a person who did not commit sin would not feel guilt.

In actual Catholicism, there is no demand for guilt. Guilt is something in people - and usually an effect of poor upbringing, bad parenting, not the Churches.

People who attack Christianity on the basis of the strange portrayal of God in the Jewish Bible, probably the result of those people's bad upbringing, are practicing sophistry. The New Testament is New because it teaches a different image of God as love.

Jesus is not the staff-wielding Zeus in the image of an angry Moses overwhelmed with responsibility for 200,000* very bad children (uncouth freed slaves). He is the good shepherd, the God of Psalms.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I'm sorry for those who feel guilt. Had they a better parenting they would not feel guilty, and would praise the shepherd for caring.

Now the notion of the good shepherd needs some explaining. The good shepherd does not want to beat the heck out his sheep for not obeying the rules. Rather he is leading them lovingly out of danger.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”

But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10)

He is trying to protect us, to leadeth us to green pastures.

Feeling guilt has nothing to do with the teachings of Catholicism, but lack of understanding of them. Those who plant their guilt upon some institution seem to want to not be lead, and yet feel righteous at the same time. They are angry at the shepherd and surrender to the wolves, and think themselves free.

But here now is the real point I want to make about the term "Catholic guilt." It is sad that due to misunderstanding the motives of the Avatars, people do wind up in a state of guilt. But what is really stupid about the concept of creating the pejorative term 'Catholic guilt' onto guilt, with its strong judgmentalism of religion, is that the person who is acting stupidly and not in his interest (sinning) is casting the blame for his guilt onto some external abstraction -- religion, or society, or conservatives, or God, or priests or parents. The person sinning, then, wants those advising him to be shamed for 'making' him feel ashamed. The sinner creates his own 'rule' that religions are not following, and condemns and judges religion for its disobedience. The sinner, then, is doing the very thing he feels others are, i.e. making up 'norms' for religion to conform to and condemning religion for not abiding by them -- so that no one should ever judge their sin a sin.

In other words the sinner has become that bad parent.

Now what harm is judgment going to bring to the church (which an institution after all, not a person)? Note there is no real rational why judging a sinner sinful is a sin!!! Yet he (now the Moses in the story) is convinced there is something sinful and unacceptable in it. He thus stands in judgment of his assumed judges. He is now the embodiment of all he condemns as wrong. And offers no justification, no reason not to judge him, other than his own 'command' that it be accepted as a moral imperative not to judge him and that this new moral imperative he pulled out of his imagination be obeyed!!!! Or he will disapprove of the church.

The funny thing is that things are so out of wack that the church is caving out of guilt, and now allowing more and more of what its own scriptures condemn as an abomination, so afraid are they of disobeying the norms established by the sinners. The sinner has become the moralizer.

Could the world get any crazier than that?

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Part II
The Parable of the guilt-ridden king

Imagine there is a King. He has a trusted advisor who is an older statesman and very wise.

Now the advisor tells the King not to invade a nation he is planning to invade. He explains to the King the likely negative consequences of such an action, and advises him to take a different course of action that will achieve the same ends.

Now the king goes and invades the nation. He feels guilty when he sees the advisor or even a picture of the advisor. He feels the advisor is likely judging him. He seems to see it in his expression, even when it is not there. The smallest look of sorrow in the advisor's face is enough to make the king feel very irritated and judged. Eventually the king is so irritated he sends the advisor away into exile, and has all the pictures of the advisor removed from his court. The king says it is an offense to judge the King, and the subjects of the kingdom are to think the advisor thinks too much of himself.

Now the king invades the neighboring country, and true to the advisor's words things do not go well. Soon the king is imprisoned in the neighboring country. He is very sad about his plight.

In all this, never seeing his own folly, the king dies cursing the advisor. He thinks had the advisor only not made him feel guilty, it would have all been okay.

Of course the advisor only advised the king, and the rest was all in the king's imagination. All his mental anguish and guilt was of his own making by his own imagination.
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* 200,000 Jews following Moses out of Egypt is approximated from A Mathematical Conundrum: The Problem of the Large Numbers in Numbers I and XXVI
by Eryl W. Davies, 1995.