Why does DC seem like such a Catholic town with so little Catholics?

[Anonymous]

"So Little Catholics"

This is like the other post where someone said "they should have came here legally"

If you want people to pay attention to your post, use actual proper English. That isn't it.

[Anonymous]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/29/major-u-s-metropolitan-areas-differ-in-their-religious-profiles/


Absolutely wild to say that 20% is "not a lot"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are Catholics here for sure, but it’s not nearly as heavily Catholic as Boston, New York or Philly. Historically it was always more African American and AAs aren’t real Catholic.

This area has a huge historically Black Catholic community. Add Black immigrants from Catholic countries and you have a lot of predominantly Blavk parishes in DC and suburban MD.

The numbers speak for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The universities, the churches/cathedrals, and yet I never meet any Catholics out in this area at all.

What gives?

The ones with black splotches on their foreheads on ash Wednesday are Catholics.

In DC, just as likely, if not more likely, to be Episcopalian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Answering from the VA side, this is a very, very conservative parish. It's not just conservative, but inflexible. I wanted to marry DH (protestant) in the Catholic church I'd been attending for years and the priest just wouldn't budge on DH converting. I realize we probably could have fought harder. We would both have attended the catholic church and raised our children catholic, but DH didn't want to go through RCIA. We had multiple meetings with the priest about it, so we left.

The current Catholic church near me (Arlington diocese) is very political and even makes political statements during the homily. My parents have a lot of trouble with it.

Interestingly enough, DC proper has a lot of Opus Dei.

Yea you didn’t try very hard. Our Catholic daughter married her non-Catholic husband in the Arlington diocese with minimal effort and with absolutely no pressure on him to convert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/29/major-u-s-metropolitan-areas-differ-in-their-religious-profiles/


Absolutely wild to say that 20% is "not a lot"

Compared to the Deep South, maybe, but 20 percent isn’t even the national average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The universities, the churches/cathedrals, and yet I never meet any Catholics out in this area at all.

What gives?

This is a hard town to be openly Catholic with people that you don’t know well. Although the majority of US Catholics and Catholics in this area particular, are not social conservatives, you will be tar-brushed as right wing.

Before the pandemic, I volunteered for years with a nonprofit that did art therapy. In 2019, someone joined the board who assumed that I and another volunteer would be anti-LGBTQ because of our religions. She demanded that we quit because she said it made her feel uncomfortable and she was certain we made the population we served uncomfortable. She only knew I was Catholic because she asked to change a meeting to accommodate her religious holiday and I said I couldn’t attend the new date because my religious holiday was the next day.

When I was told I had to quit because I was Catholic, I fought back a bit, pointing out that 1)one of my kids was an out lesbian and very active in our parish, 2) the witnesses at my wedding were a gay couple, and 3) I had been the volunteer who brought in a trans masc artist (a friend’s partner) to work with our Haitian clients.

It didn’t work. The knee jerk on her part was that as a Catholic, I had to be a bigot so I had to go.

Since then, I have been hesitant to identify myself as Catholic. When it happens online, I see that same knee jerk response even when I am clearly protesting socially conservative policies and ideas.

I’m so sorry that you were harassed in this way. People who act like this idiot will not make it any easier to reclaim the WH in 28. Bless you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/29/major-u-s-metropolitan-areas-differ-in-their-religious-profiles/


Absolutely wild to say that 20% is "not a lot"

Compared to the Deep South, maybe, but 20 percent isn’t even the national average.

So?
"Below average" isn't
" I never meet any Catholics out in this area at all. "

[Anonymous]

We are not supposed to talk about it... it's like fight club.

We are supposed to stay under the radar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So Little Catholics"

This is like the other post where someone said "they should have came here legally"

If you want people to pay attention to your post, use actual proper English. That isn't it.

I had the same thought.

DC is overrun with short Catholics!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH (Protestant) and I married out of my Catholic home parish in NoVa with clergy from each side co-presiding. So there’s that.

Agree that the Arl diocese has long been a conservative diocese. But there are plenty of less conservative parishes and Catholics in DC and have been for generations.

Yes, my first husband was Jewish and I’m Catholic. We had an interfaith ceremony with a priest at Georgetown and a rabbi. It was much harder to find a rabbi willing to officiate because we wouldn’t promise to raise kids Jewish. Zero pressure on my then husband to convert or promise to raise Catholic kids.

[Anonymous]

Protestants do the ashes thing too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are Catholics here for sure, but it’s not nearly as heavily Catholic as Boston, New York or Philly. Historically it was always more African American and AAs aren’t real Catholic.

Oh shut the hell up

[Anonymous]

I’m still confused as to what a “cradle Catholic” is

Does it mean one is somehow more Catholic than a child who gets baptized and takes communion at, say, 7 years old?

Does it mean you had a crucifix over your crib and that your mobile was a bunch of holy cards and rosaries?

Would the seven years between birth and 1st communion mean you get some kind of Catholic extra credit or something? You’re barely a sentient human yet much less immersed in any doctrine you can understand.

Does the Catholic Church even distinguish between someone born into a Catholic family vs. a converted family? Does it mean Boston College and Holy Cross give your application extra weight if you declare yourself a “cradle Catholic?”

What an odd phrase altogether

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m still confused as to what a “cradle Catholic” is

Does it mean one is somehow more Catholic than a child who gets baptized and takes communion at, say, 7 years old?

Does it mean you had a crucifix over your crib and that your mobile was a bunch of holy cards and rosaries?

Would the seven years between birth and 1st communion mean you get some kind of Catholic extra credit or something? You’re barely a sentient human yet much less immersed in any doctrine you can understand.

Does the Catholic Church even distinguish between someone born into a Catholic family vs. a converted family? Does it mean Boston College and Holy Cross give your application extra weight if you declare yourself a “cradle Catholic?”

What an odd phrase altogether

It's just shorthand for if you were born into a Catholic family and raised practicing the religion vs someone who converted to the faith from another faith or someone who joined the faith having grown up not practicing any faith. It doesn't imply that being 'cradle' is somehow better.