CAPEs and CEOs

If you're anything like me, you saw the acronyms in the title and thought "What in the world does that mean? Is she going to talk about superheroes and businessmen?" Unfortunately no, this won't be a fun post about Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. I'm going to be talking about Catholics today. I just saw those acronyms for the first time this morning in the reblogs of a tumblr post and I had to google what they meant. Apparently, CAPE stands for Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Easter and CEO stands for Christmas and Easter Only. The acronyms are used to make fun of, belittle, and complain about "lapsed Catholics" or people who only attend mass a few times a year. You might be saying to yourself, "but I thought Jesus told us NOT to judge others?"...so did I. So did I.

As I was scrolling through all the beautiful seasonal and spiritual posts on my tumblr dashboard this morning I came across this gem of a post. Apparently nothing ticks some people off more than "once a year churchgoers" and some people find "E-and-C Catholics" so "stressful". (No disrespect to the blog I linked to as that person seemed to be sticking up for the people being judged and complained about). I am a little bothered by this because I am probably the exact type of person they are referring to when they say these things and I know many other people like me.

I am going to take this opportunity to discuss some of the reasons that either I personally have for only going to Catholic mass a few times a year or reasons that I know other people have told me they have for only going a few times a year:

• People were raised Catholic and still participate in the same holiday traditions as their family and do so with their family, but personally do NOT consider themselves to be Catholic anymore.
• Families can force or coerce their adult children to go to church even when they don’t believe it anymore and the twice a year a thing can be a compromise or they can be guilted into it.
• The people in their family’s parish, including the priest leading the homily they have to sit and listen to, could be hateful and could be preaching things that the person does not want to subject themselves to. This is a big one for me. I’m tired of listening to homily after homily of homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, pro-war and violence propaganda. I think the final straw was when I had to listen to a homily where the priest thought it was appropriate to make fun of a fat woman he saw. I was done. I had to restrain myself from walking out on the spot. And yes, I realize I have the option to go to another church but IF. I. DON’T. WANT. TO. THAT'S. MY. BUSINESS. AS. IT’S. MY. LIFE. AND. MY. FAITH. Whether or not I want to go and how often I want to go is up to me and is a deeply personal decision to make. I know of lgbt people who no longer want to go to mass for the same reason. They feel hated and judged when they go so they give up on going.
• We could have a genuine issue with the Catholic church and prefer to pray on our own. For me, my primary issue is that they won’t ordain women. If I’m not viewed as equal in the eyes of the church because I’m a woman, I DON’T WANT TO BE THERE AT ALL. PERIOD. I DON’T FEEL WELCOME. Just because I MIGHT show up to mass a few times a year or go to the fish fry doesn’t mean anything. I still get something out of mass when I do go, I still get something out of saying some Catholic prayers or saying the Rosary, but the Catholic church as an institution makes me feel unwelcome. Some might take issue with the way the church handled the child abuse cases and don’t feel comfortable going anymore. People might have problems with the church for different reasons and choose to handle them in different ways.
• Going on the holidays with our families could just be a cultural thing, while we personally might be agnostics, Christians but not necessarily Catholics anymore, religious pluralists like I am, we might not agree on the exact theology of the Church anymore, some of us might actually practice a different religion in secret but have to hide it from our parents, etc. 

There are lots of reasons why people might not want to go to mass anymore but might still very occasionally go on important days for their family’s sake. They can judge us for that if they want, but they would be going against Jesus’ commandments if they do. Sorry not sorry that our existence is so “stressful” for you guys. Have you tried minding your own business? Maybe that will solve your stress problem. Spirituality, religion, and faith are deeply personal things. It’s not one size fits all. Some feel comfortable in the Catholic church and some don’t. I personally don’t believe that you HAVE to be a Catholic or any other one single sect of an organized religion to be loved, to be saved, or to be a good person. They all sound hateful, self-righteous, and judgmental, I wouldn’t want to go to a church service with them sitting in the pews with me anyway. I wish people would stop giving Catholics, Christians, and religious followers in general a bad name with this behavior. 

So what do you all think about this? Have you ever felt judged for not regularly going to religious services? Do you have a problem with people who only go to religious services a few times a year? Where do you stand on the issue? Let me know in the comments section so we can have a discussion about it. Maybe you can bring up something I haven't considered yet, but to me it seems unnecessarily judgmental. 

P.S. Something seems to have gotten messed up with the font of this post, so I apologize if it looks weird on your screen.