Catholic guilt

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A confessional, used by Catholics to confess their sins Cathedrale Saint-Etienne de Toulouse - chapelle des reliques - Confessionnal PM31000752.jpg
A confessional, used by Catholics to confess their sins

Catholic guilt is the reported excess guilt felt by Catholics and lapsed Catholics. [1] Guilt is remorse for having committed some offense or wrong, real or imagined. [2] It is related to, although distinguishable from, "shame", in that the former involves an awareness of causing injury to another, while the latter arises from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, or ridiculous, done by oneself. One might feel guilty for having hurt someone, and also ashamed of oneself for having done so. [3] Philip Yancey, a spiritual author who often writes about the Christian faith, has said of guilt that it "is only a symptom; we listen to it because it drives us toward the cure". [4]

Contents

The Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass is a liturgical rudiment of this previously sacramental Confession. Private confession to an ordained priest became the normal form of this sacrament, with a strict seal of secrecy on the part of the priest. Sometimes, the practice of the sacrament emphasized doing acts of penance, or making one's sorrow or contrition authentic. Sometimes, it emphasized confessing all of one's serious or "mortal" sins, sometimes it emphasized the power of the priest, acting In persona Christi , to absolve the penitent of sins. Currently, there are forms that include one-on-one Confession to a priest, or communal preparation preceding a one-on-one Confession. [5] After the practice of confession declined in the 1970s, it became common for Catholic theologians and clergy to attribute this to a loss of "healthy guilt". [6]

Examples

Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited involves guilt in the Catholic religion. Distressed by her romantic relationship with Charles Ryder, Julia Flyte exclaims: "I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable [...]; to set up a rival good to God's. [...] it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end." [7]

The subject is treated humorously in the 30 Rock episode "The Fighting Irish". Catholic guilt is described by Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin): "That's not how it works, Tracy. Even though there is the whole confession thing, that's no free pass, because there is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt". [8] [9]

Research

Guilt can be viewed in terms of constructiveness versus destructiveness: "constructive guilt" is focused on forgiving one's ethical lapses and changing one's behavior, while "destructive guilt" remains mired in self-loathing and does not emphasize learning from one's wrongdoings and moving ahead with life. A 2005 study in Psychology of Religion found that Catholic participants demonstrated a higher level of constructive guilt reactions than other groups. [10] Research on a link between Catholicism and guilt appears to be inconclusive.

Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms. [11] Research is mixed on the possible connection between Catholicism and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. A 2002 study of 165 individuals by the University of Parma found that religious individuals scored higher on measures of control of thoughts and overimportance of thoughts, and that these measures were associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms only in the religious participants. [12]

A 1998 study noted a link between intrinsic religiosity and obsessive–compulsive cognitions/behaviors only among Catholic participants. [13] However, a 1991 study from Boston University found that no particular religion was more common among OCD patients, and that OCD patients were no more religious than other subjects with anxiety. Religious obsessions were connected to the participants' religiosity, but sexual and aggressive symptoms were not. Greater religious devotion among OCD patients was correlated with increased guilt. [14]

A 1984 study in American Behavioral Scientist analyzed interviews with participants from Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant backgrounds. The author reported that most participants "eagerly described an experience of guilt." [15]

In 2004, Ulster University students participated in a study that found a slightly higher level of collective guilt among the Catholic students than the Protestant students. [16]

In 2008, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and from the University of Notre Dame examined the concept of Catholic guilt among American teenagers. The authors found no evidence of Catholic guilt in this population, noting that Catholicism both caused and relieved less guilt than other religious traditions. The authors found no evidence that Catholic teenagers experience more guilt than non-Catholic ones. The authors did not find that more observant Catholics feel guiltier than less observant Catholics. The study noted no difference in the effect of guilt-inducing behaviors on Catholic versus non-Catholic participants. [17]

A 1988 study from Hofstra University reported no difference in total guilt among religions, although religiosity itself was connected to guilt. [18]

Catholic viewpoint

According to the website Catholic Spiritual Direction, guilt is a by-product of an informed conscience but "Catholic" guilt is often confused with scrupulosity, and an overly scrupulous conscience is an exaggeration of healthy guilt. [19] [ better source needed ]

Phillip Campbell, an author with Catholic Exchange, wrote an article in February 2024 in which he insists that Catholic guilt is not real. He calls it "a trope wherein Catholics are said to be guilt-obsessed to the point of neurosis, wringing our hands about incidental personal flaws, exaggerating personal culpability, and loving suffering to the point of masochism" [20] and that it plays upon stereotypes of Catholics by getting a fact correct but missing the point.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoarding disorder</span> Behavioral pattern

Hoarding disorder (HD) or Plyushkin's disorder, is a mental disorder characterised by persistent difficulty in parting with possessions and engaging in excessive acquisition of items that are not needed or for which no space is available. This results in severely cluttered living spaces, distress, and impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Excessive acquisition is characterized by repetitive urges or behaviours related to amassing or buying property. Difficulty discarding possessions is characterized by a perceived need to save items and distress associated with discarding them. Accumulation of possessions results in living spaces becoming cluttered to the point that their use or safety is compromised. It is recognised by the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5).

Scrupulosity is the pathological guilt and anxiety about moral issues. Although it can affect nonreligious people, it is usually related to religious beliefs. It is personally distressing, dysfunctional, and often accompanied by significant impairment in social functioning. It is typically conceptualized as a moral or religious form of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). The term is derived from the Latin scrupus, a sharp stone, implying a stabbing pain on the conscience. Scrupulosity was formerly called scruples in religious contexts, but the word scruple now commonly refers to a troubling of the conscience rather than to the disorder.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intrusive thought</span> Unwelcome involuntary thought, image or idea

An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. When such thoughts are associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette's syndrome (TS), depression, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), and sometimes attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the thoughts may become paralyzing, anxiety-provoking, or persistent. Intrusive thoughts may also be associated with episodic memory, unwanted worries or memories from OCD, post-traumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, eating disorders, or psychosis. Intrusive thoughts, urges, and images are of inappropriate things at inappropriate times, and generally have aggressive, sexual, or blasphemous themes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obsessive–compulsive disorder</span> Mental and behavioral disorder

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and feels the need to perform certain routines (compulsions) repeatedly to relieve the distress caused by the obsession, to the extent where it impairs general function.

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The University of Florida Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder Program is a treatment and research clinic in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida. The clinic is located in Gainesville, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wayne Goodman</span> American psychiatrist and researcher

Wayne Goodman is an American psychiatrist and researcher who specializes in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He is the principal developer, along with his colleagues, of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Abramowitz</span> American clinical psychologist

Jonathan Stuart Abramowitz is an American clinical psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). He is an expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders whose work is highly cited. He maintains a research lab and currently serves as the Director of the UNC-CH Clinical Psychology PhD Program. Abramowitz approaches the understanding and treatment of psychological problems from a cognitive-behavioral perspective.

The Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) is a 20-item self-report instrument that assesses the severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms along four empirically supported theme-based dimensions: (a) contamination, (b) responsibility for harm and mistakes, (c) incompleteness/symmetry, and (d) unacceptable (taboo) thoughts. The scale was developed in 2010 by a team of experts on OCD led by Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD to improve upon existing OCD measures and advance the assessment and understanding of OCD. The DOCS contains four subscales that have been shown to have good reliability, validity, diagnostic sensitivity, and sensitivity to treatment effects in a variety of settings cross-culturally and in different languages. As such, the DOCS meets the needs of clinicians and researchers who wish to measure current OCD symptoms or assess changes in symptoms over time.

Inferential confusion is a meta-cognitive state of confusion that becomes pathological when an individual fails to interpret reality correctly and considers an obsessional belief or subjective reality as an actual probability. It causes an individual to mistrust their senses and rely on self-created narratives ignoring evidence and the objectivity of events. These self-created narratives come from memories, information, and associations that aren't related- therefore, it deals with the fictional nature of obsessions. It causes the individual to overestimate the threat.

References

  1. ↑ Stravinskas, Peter (1990). Catholic Answer Book . Our Sunday Visitor. p.  78. ISBN   978-0-87973-458-9.
  2. ↑ "Definition of GUILT". www.merriam-webster.com. 22 April 2024.
  3. ↑ "The Difference Between Guilt and Shame". Psychology Today .
  4. ↑ Yancey, Philip. "Can Guilt Be a Good Thing?". Today's Christian Woman. Retrieved 2024-03-24.
  5. ↑ Gula, Richard M. (1984-05-01). To Walk Together Again: The Sacrament of Reconciliation . Paulist Press. ISBN   978-0-8091-2603-3.
  6. ↑ Stotts, Jonathan (5 June 2019). "Obedience as Belonging: Catholic Guilt and Frequent Confession in America". Religions. 10 (6). MDPI AG: 370. doi: 10.3390/rel10060370 . ISSN   2077-1444.
  7. ↑ "on Julia Flyte". Shmoop.com. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  8. ↑ IMDB 30 Rock
  9. ↑ "When "Catholic guilt" gets in the way of Catholic faith". America Magazine. July 11, 2018.
  10. ↑ "ingentaconnect Guilt and Religion: The influence of orthodox Protestant and orth". Ingentaconnect.com. 2005-01-01. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  11. ↑ Leslie J. Shapiro, LICSW. "Pathological guilt: A persistent yet overlooked treatment factor in obsessive-compulsive disorder —". Aacp.com. Archived from the original on 2012-12-01. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  12. ↑ Sica, Claudio; Novara, Caterina; Sanavio, Ezio (2002-07-31). "Religiousness and obsessive–compulsive cognitions and symptoms in an Italian population". Behaviour Research and Therapy. 40 (7): 813–823. doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00120-6. PMID   12074375.
  13. ↑ Hutchinson, Geoffrey T.; Patock-Peckham, Julie A.; Cheong, Jee Won; Nagoshi, Craig T. (1998-02-28). "Personality predictors of religious orientation among Protestant, Catholic, and non-religious college students". Personality and Individual Differences. 24 (2): 145–151. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(97)00164-5.
  14. ↑ Steketee, Gail; Quay, Sara; White, Kerrin (1991-12-31). "Religion and guilt in OCD patients". Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 5 (4): 359–367. doi:10.1016/0887-6185(91)90035-R.
  15. ↑ LINDSAY-HARTZ, J. (1 August 1984). "Contrasting Experiences of Shame and Guilt". American Behavioral Scientist. 27 (6): 689–704. doi:10.1177/000276484027006003. S2CID   57554624.
  16. ↑ Branscombe, Nyla B; Branscombe, Nyla R; Doosje, Bertjan (2004-09-06). Collective Guilt: International Perspectives – Google Books. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-52083-6 . Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  17. ↑ Vaisey, Stephen; Smith, Christian (1 January 2008). "Catholic Guilt among U.S. Teenagers: A Research Note". Review of Religious Research. 49 (4): 415–426. JSTOR   20447515.
  18. ↑ Demaria, Thomas; Kassinove, Howard (1988-12-01). "Predicting guilt from irrational beliefs, religious affiliation and religiosity –". Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. 6 (4): 259–272. doi:10.1007/BF01061292. S2CID   144607681.
  19. ↑ "Catholic Spiritual Direction". www.catholicspiritualdirection.org. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  20. ↑ "Catholic Guilt is Not a Thing". Catholic Exchange. 2024-02-15. Retrieved 2024-03-24.

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