A Thing That I Feel Like Not A Lot Of People Fully Realize Or Understand About Catholicism—including

A thing that I feel like not a lot of people fully realize or understand about Catholicism—including even Christians from other Christian denominations, sometimes—is exactly how terrible confession can be and how much the Catholic Church dangles the fear of going to hell over your head. Like, they make it sound like it's just a matter of going, oops, you did a sin? That's okay ^_^ just go to your priest, who is basically like a therapist, and talk to him about it a little bit, and then you get let off scott-free! Wow! Isn't God so great?

When in my experience, it's more like, oh, you sinned? You defiled your soul and severed the relationship between you and the person in charge of sustaining life on the whole entire world? You basically just set a ticking time bomb on yourself, because if you die before you next get to confession (and you aren't given last rights), you have just damned yourself to suffering in purgation. And you'd better hope that you only committed a venial sin! Was your sin a "grave matter"? Was it committed knowingly? Did you give your full consent? Then uh oh! That's mortal sin territory! Now you're going to hell forever, unless you get to a Catholic priest and confess your sins, now

(btw "mortal sins" include masturbation, lying in the confessional, and not going to church on Sunday)

(source: the Baltimore Catechism, 1969)

Did you make your confession? Was it a full confession? Are you sure?

You'd better be, because if not, you're going to hell!

Like, I think Martin Luther was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about this one. This is just moral OCD in a bottle. Or, I guess, in a book.