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It is literally this tweet from a few years ago: > Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and

It is literally this tweet from a few years ago: > Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."

CobrastanJorji 6mo ago
You get three kinds of adult converts. The first kind of convert wants to marry somebody Catholic. They're joining because they love somebody. The second kind of convert was approached by missionaries that built their community a school or a well or something, and they're grateful that somebody clearly cares about them and their community. The third type of convert, though, joins because they like the structure. They like the gravitas. They like the moral absolutes. They like the patriarchal hierarchy that doesn't let women lead. They sign up and immediately declare that Vatican 2 was a terrible mistake and that all of the popes since then have been illegitimate. JD Vance didn't join because he loved their soup kitchens.
- axus 6mo ago
  The third group ends up joining the Russian Orthodox church.
  - giraffe_lady 6mo ago
    I'm actually eastern orthodox and we do get a lot of this type, but plenty of them convert to catholicism as well. It seems to mostly be a matter of aesthetic preference. Not many convert to actual russian orthodox the way orthodox people mean it, because there simply are not very many ROCOR parishes in the US compared to other options.
  - selectodude 6mo ago
    I imagine that's the case in a lot of Europe but the Russian Orthodox Church doesn't really exist in the US, especially post-Ukraine war.
    - giraffe_lady 6mo ago
      The distinction really only matters to orthodox christians and not even them most of the time. There are a lot of churches that are in the russian tradition while not actually being part of ROCOR, which is indeed tiny though I don't believe its numbers were hurt by the ukraine war. OCA is the second-largest jurisdiction (distantly, behind the greeks) in the US and most of its parishes could be described as "english language russian orthodox" though they are not ultimately under the patriarch of moscow. Which is close enough to what most nonorthodox mean when they say russian orthodox. The jurisdictional situation is a mess but since the churches are all in communion with each other individuals are free to not care about it and most exercise that freedom.
    - lopsotronic 6mo ago
      One of the biggest sources of gossip in my gramma's life was when the Russian church muscled out the old Kadets-descended priests and laypeople in her little Florida ROCOR church, right around the Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007. Almost instantaneously we were up to our ears in slick guys with shiny suits making improbable real estate deals with money that just apparated from Lord Knows Where. I have a high tolerance for sketch, but Easter services rose past that threshold rapidly; there is only so much leopard print and fishnet I can take when walking around a tiny church at 2 AM. Offtopic, but during that period, between 2007 and when gramma passed, I noticed another fascinating phenomenon. The old grannies would talk about some young gangster or other "finding their Jewish granma". I chalked it up to the usual venomous levels of Russian antisemitism[1], but a couple news stories later, and I'll be damned if there wasn't a brace of these jokers claiming Right of Return, supposedly from some Jewish relations they lost track of pre-WW2. Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but if I was a Russian gangster looking to move money around, and I look at the Right of Return, and then I think to myself about how, uh, lackluster records keeping was on the Ostfront . . I mean, the idea of maybe falsifying some family records might cross my mind. And maybe, if Israel needs some cash, maybe there's a renegade political party that needs some outsiders, they won't check those records super hard, either. And that's how mischief in history happens right there. [1] Particularly among the generation that got chased out with the Whites, the "last boat from Kaffa". To their dying day that generation basically considered Communism to be the "fist of the Jew" smashing the old order, and they carried that grudge their entire lives. I know, oof.
  - SubiculumCode 6mo ago
    Yes. There is a ton of Russian propaganda against the Catholic church claiming the current and last popes to be "anti-popes" and spawns of Satan, and all that, and it is exactly this progression Catholic Church-->Russian Orthodox Church which is under Putin's thumb.
  - MSFT_Edging 6mo ago
    Only the super-dedicated ones. I knew a guy in highschool, he was adopted from Russia by a Russian-Jewish family. He was raised Jewish. Somewhere after highschool he got dragged into dark spots of the internet. Him and a close friend of his converted to Eastern Orthodox and began dropping constant Nazi dog whistles. Explicit anti-semitism. Both were in the military, one was an Army Ranger. Their posts were reported to LE but nothing came of it. I'm confident the Ranger would kill for fun if given the chance, and any evidence of his war crimes would be covered up. Knew a totally different Orthodox convert. He converted in college, went to school for political science. Sucked on his cross necklace and told my sister she'd be going to hell. She thankfully broke up with him. The Orthodox church attracts some real cretins in my experience.
    - axus 6mo ago
      And like all religions it's filled with wonderful people, in this thread we are complaining about converts :)
      - MSFT_Edging 6mo ago
        Oh I'm sure people born into it view it very differently from the converts. Same thing with Catholicism. By "attracts", I was insinuating people not already in the church, aka converts.
    - ahazred8ta 6mo ago
      Many people who switch religions are not completely tacked down around the edges.
stratocumulus0 6mo ago
This is exactly my observation. Every now and then there's an Anglo posting on Polish social media asking people questions about some obscure Catholic doctrines and getting offended after they're told that no one there cares. I guess that such people see the number "98% Catholic" on the page for Poland on Wikipedia and conclude that it must be some medieval tradcath white nationalist theocracy. I am deeply skeptical of all converts to Catholicism and I speculate that the alt-right spaces online painted a picture of conversion as going back to the foundation of the Western civilization, or at least its idealized white nationalist picture.
- jmmcd 6mo ago
  > Anglo Please, write US-American. These people are not coming from any other place.
  - pjc50 6mo ago
    British "anglo-catholics" exist, and are weird in a different way.
    - FearNotDaniel 6mo ago
      Yes but Anglo-Catholic doesn’t mean an Anglo who is Catholic. It means an Anglican who is pretending to be Catholic but without acknowledging the pope’s authority.
  - guzfip 6mo ago
    Oh no, half of the accounts I see doing this shit end up being British
  - sillyfluke 6mo ago
    This comment is amusing considering Tony Blair was one of those notable weird politician converts.
empath75 6mo ago
Real catholics only think about the church on Easter, Christmas, baptisms, weddings and funerals.
- Ylpertnodi 6mo ago
  ...and when it suits them.
  - lostlogin 6mo ago
    Only when it suits them.
joshstrange 6mo ago
My disillusionment with religion is mostly due to people not practicing what they preach and/or what their holy book says. Want to make a religious leader/adult mad as a kid? Ask them why we aren't doing more for the poor like Jesus would do. Source: Me as a kid. I didn't ask in a snotty way, genuinely asked and got rebuked for it. I often feel as if I follow the Bible closer than a number of, ostensibly, "religious" people. What's the quote? Something like "I like your Christ, I do not like his followers"? I'm probably butchering it. I was raised in the church, I internalized the teachings and methodologies, however voting for people who try to do those things is met with scorn. Most "religious" people would rather vote for the person talking about how much they love the Bible (or <insert holy book here>) rather than the people actually doing things inline with the Bible. "Feed the poor... unless it will raise my taxes"
- fhdkweig 6mo ago
  > What's the quote? Something like "I like your Christ, I do not like his followers"? I'm probably butchering it. The common phrasing is "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Snopes says it is unproven as a quote from Gandhi. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-christians/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-... But false quotes get passed around a lot because people agree with them. I also happen to agree with this particular one.

CobrastanJorji 6mo ago

You get three kinds of adult converts. The first kind of convert wants to marry somebody Catholic. They're joining because they love somebody. The second kind of convert was approached by missionaries that built their community a school or a well or something, and they're grateful that somebody clearly cares about them and their community. The third type of convert, though, joins because they like the structure. They like the gravitas. They like the moral absolutes. They like the patriarchal hierarchy that doesn't let women lead. They sign up and immediately declare that Vatican 2 was a terrible mistake and that all of the popes since then have been illegitimate. JD Vance didn't join because he loved their soup kitchens.

axus 6mo ago
The third group ends up joining the Russian Orthodox church.
- giraffe_lady 6mo ago
  I'm actually eastern orthodox and we do get a lot of this type, but plenty of them convert to catholicism as well. It seems to mostly be a matter of aesthetic preference. Not many convert to actual russian orthodox the way orthodox people mean it, because there simply are not very many ROCOR parishes in the US compared to other options.
- selectodude 6mo ago
  I imagine that's the case in a lot of Europe but the Russian Orthodox Church doesn't really exist in the US, especially post-Ukraine war.
  - giraffe_lady 6mo ago
    The distinction really only matters to orthodox christians and not even them most of the time. There are a lot of churches that are in the russian tradition while not actually being part of ROCOR, which is indeed tiny though I don't believe its numbers were hurt by the ukraine war. OCA is the second-largest jurisdiction (distantly, behind the greeks) in the US and most of its parishes could be described as "english language russian orthodox" though they are not ultimately under the patriarch of moscow. Which is close enough to what most nonorthodox mean when they say russian orthodox. The jurisdictional situation is a mess but since the churches are all in communion with each other individuals are free to not care about it and most exercise that freedom.
  - lopsotronic 6mo ago
    One of the biggest sources of gossip in my gramma's life was when the Russian church muscled out the old Kadets-descended priests and laypeople in her little Florida ROCOR church, right around the Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007. Almost instantaneously we were up to our ears in slick guys with shiny suits making improbable real estate deals with money that just apparated from Lord Knows Where. I have a high tolerance for sketch, but Easter services rose past that threshold rapidly; there is only so much leopard print and fishnet I can take when walking around a tiny church at 2 AM. Offtopic, but during that period, between 2007 and when gramma passed, I noticed another fascinating phenomenon. The old grannies would talk about some young gangster or other "finding their Jewish granma". I chalked it up to the usual venomous levels of Russian antisemitism[1], but a couple news stories later, and I'll be damned if there wasn't a brace of these jokers claiming Right of Return, supposedly from some Jewish relations they lost track of pre-WW2. Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but if I was a Russian gangster looking to move money around, and I look at the Right of Return, and then I think to myself about how, uh, lackluster records keeping was on the Ostfront . . I mean, the idea of maybe falsifying some family records might cross my mind. And maybe, if Israel needs some cash, maybe there's a renegade political party that needs some outsiders, they won't check those records super hard, either. And that's how mischief in history happens right there. [1] Particularly among the generation that got chased out with the Whites, the "last boat from Kaffa". To their dying day that generation basically considered Communism to be the "fist of the Jew" smashing the old order, and they carried that grudge their entire lives. I know, oof.
- SubiculumCode 6mo ago
  Yes. There is a ton of Russian propaganda against the Catholic church claiming the current and last popes to be "anti-popes" and spawns of Satan, and all that, and it is exactly this progression Catholic Church-->Russian Orthodox Church which is under Putin's thumb.
- MSFT_Edging 6mo ago
  Only the super-dedicated ones. I knew a guy in highschool, he was adopted from Russia by a Russian-Jewish family. He was raised Jewish. Somewhere after highschool he got dragged into dark spots of the internet. Him and a close friend of his converted to Eastern Orthodox and began dropping constant Nazi dog whistles. Explicit anti-semitism. Both were in the military, one was an Army Ranger. Their posts were reported to LE but nothing came of it. I'm confident the Ranger would kill for fun if given the chance, and any evidence of his war crimes would be covered up. Knew a totally different Orthodox convert. He converted in college, went to school for political science. Sucked on his cross necklace and told my sister she'd be going to hell. She thankfully broke up with him. The Orthodox church attracts some real cretins in my experience.
  - axus 6mo ago
    And like all religions it's filled with wonderful people, in this thread we are complaining about converts :)
    - MSFT_Edging 6mo ago
      Oh I'm sure people born into it view it very differently from the converts. Same thing with Catholicism. By "attracts", I was insinuating people not already in the church, aka converts.
  - ahazred8ta 6mo ago
    Many people who switch religions are not completely tacked down around the edges.

stratocumulus0 6mo ago

This is exactly my observation. Every now and then there's an Anglo posting on Polish social media asking people questions about some obscure Catholic doctrines and getting offended after they're told that no one there cares. I guess that such people see the number "98% Catholic" on the page for Poland on Wikipedia and conclude that it must be some medieval tradcath white nationalist theocracy. I am deeply skeptical of all converts to Catholicism and I speculate that the alt-right spaces online painted a picture of conversion as going back to the foundation of the Western civilization, or at least its idealized white nationalist picture.

jmmcd 6mo ago
> Anglo Please, write US-American. These people are not coming from any other place.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  British "anglo-catholics" exist, and are weird in a different way.
  - FearNotDaniel 6mo ago
    Yes but Anglo-Catholic doesn’t mean an Anglo who is Catholic. It means an Anglican who is pretending to be Catholic but without acknowledging the pope’s authority.
- guzfip 6mo ago
  Oh no, half of the accounts I see doing this shit end up being British
- sillyfluke 6mo ago
  This comment is amusing considering Tony Blair was one of those notable weird politician converts.

empath75 6mo ago

Real catholics only think about the church on Easter, Christmas, baptisms, weddings and funerals.

Ylpertnodi 6mo ago
...and when it suits them.
- lostlogin 6mo ago
  Only when it suits them.

joshstrange 6mo ago

My disillusionment with religion is mostly due to people not practicing what they preach and/or what their holy book says. Want to make a religious leader/adult mad as a kid? Ask them why we aren't doing more for the poor like Jesus would do. Source: Me as a kid. I didn't ask in a snotty way, genuinely asked and got rebuked for it. I often feel as if I follow the Bible closer than a number of, ostensibly, "religious" people. What's the quote? Something like "I like your Christ, I do not like his followers"? I'm probably butchering it. I was raised in the church, I internalized the teachings and methodologies, however voting for people who try to do those things is met with scorn. Most "religious" people would rather vote for the person talking about how much they love the Bible (or <insert holy book here>) rather than the people actually doing things inline with the Bible. "Feed the poor... unless it will raise my taxes"

fhdkweig 6mo ago
> What's the quote? Something like "I like your Christ, I do not like his followers"? I'm probably butchering it. The common phrasing is "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Snopes says it is unproven as a quote from Gandhi. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-christians/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-... But false quotes get passed around a lot because people agree with them. I also happen to agree with this particular one.