Non-Catholic lurkers of this subreddit

I’m, according to this subreddit, a cultural Catholic or as my Father put it when in college he found out I wasn’t attending mass “you’ll always be Catholic”. I currently work for the Catholic Church but according to most of the members here I don’t qualify as Catholic. Recently I’ve been reckoning with my Catholicism. Honestly I find the doctrine to be quite stifling. I find the fact that God is labeled as Him to be problematic. I find the fact that women cannot be Priests problematic. I find the fact that the church condemns masturbation and gay sex problematic. I find the fact that the Church has paid off and hidden the fact that they’ve paid off the families of children who were victims of sexual assault distressing. Still I work for the Catholic Church. Why? It’s something I can do and it’s something that is acceptable to my family and my heritage. The truth is I don’t believe there is an afterlife or that there is a God. But the Catholic Church is my home. I feel comfortable there because I’ve been going there since I was an infant. I love the drama of the Catholic mass. I love the meditation and peace it gives me when I don’t think too deeply about what exactly the Church is preaching. Most importantly I am having a harder and harder time reconciling the fact that the Catholic Church preaches shame over anything else because of the idea of original sin. The idea that no one is perfect deeply resonates with me but that to me is just a fact of life, not a flaw. Still I consider myself Catholic. I’ve been indoctrinated. No doubt hearing the Catholic mass as an infant wired my brain to think like a Catholic. But I believe in working for peace, helping the poor and downtrodden and accepting all people. I wish the Church would focus on these ideas instead of casting people aside who don’t follow the strict doctrine. I understand that the whole idea of Catholicism is it’s inflexibility but I think if it were more flexible the Church would grow and its members would lead more fulfilling lives.

/r/Catholicism Thread