Catholic guilt
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Featured: A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933) |
Catholic guilt is the feeling of remorse, self-doubt, or personal responsibility that results when a Catholic or Lapsed Catholic engages in sinful acts. Habitual obsessive guilt over trivial or imagined sins is the error of scrupulosity.
It must be noted that the term Catholic Guilt is controversial: for some Catholics, lapsed Catholics and even non-Catholics, the term is used to express a sense of "liberation" from what they see as a misguided, outdated, or misinterpreted moralism; for others, it connotes a dismissive or belittling attitude toward traditional Catholic moral teachings, or an attempt to "psychologize" or "secularize" what they see as authentic spirituality. The term is often seen, therefore, as either a disparagement of traditional Catholicism or as a statement of psychological maturity.
See also
