Catholic guilt is the reported excess guilt felt by

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and lapsed Catholics. Guilt is remorse for having committed some offense or wrong, real or imagined. It is related to, although distinguishable from, "shame", in that the former involves an awareness of causing injury to another, while the latter arises from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, or ridiculous, done by oneself. One might feel guilty for having hurt someone, and also ashamed of oneself for having done so. Philip Yancey, a spiritual author who often writes about the Christian faith, has said of guilt that it "is only a symptom; we listen to it because it drives us toward the cure". The Penitential Act at the beginning of

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

is a liturgical rudiment of this previously sacramental

Confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of people – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that ...

. Private confession to an

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

became the normal form of this sacrament, with a strict seal of secrecy on the part of the priest. Sometimes, the practice of the sacrament emphasized doing acts of

penance Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of contrition for sins committed, as well as an alternative name for the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. The word ''penance'' derive ...

, or making one's sorrow or contrition authentic. Sometimes, it emphasized confessing all of one's serious or " mortal" sins, sometimes it emphasized the power of the priest, acting '' In persona Christi'', to absolve the penitent of sins. Currently, there are forms that include one-on-one Confession to a priest, or communal preparation preceding a one-on-one Confession. After the practice of confession declined in the 1970s, it became common for Catholic theologians and clergy to attribute this to a loss of "healthy guilt".

Examples

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's '' Brideshead Revisited'' involves guilt in the Catholic religion. Distressed by her romantic relationship with Charles Ryder, Julia Flyte exclaims: "I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable .. to set up a rival good to God's. ..it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end." The subject is treated humorously in the ''

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'' episode " The Fighting Irish". Catholic guilt is described by Jack Donaghy (

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): "That's not how it works, Tracy. Even though there is the whole confession thing, that's no free pass, because there is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt".

Research

Guilt can be viewed in terms of constructiveness versus destructiveness: "constructive guilt" is focused on forgiving one's ethical lapses and changing one's behavior, while "destructive guilt" remains mired in self-loathing and does not emphasize learning from one's wrongdoings and moving ahead with life. A 2005 study in ''Psychology of Religion'' found that Catholic participants demonstrated a higher level of constructive guilt reactions than other groups. Research on a link between Catholicism and guilt appears to be inconclusive. Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating

obsessive–compulsive disorder Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts (an ''obsession'') and feels the need to perform certain routines (''Compulsive behavior, compulsions'') repeatedly to relieve the dis ...

symptoms. Research is mixed on the possible connection between Catholicism and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. A 2002 study of 165 individuals by the University of Parma found that religious individuals scored higher on measures of control of thoughts and overimportance of thoughts, and that these measures were associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms only in the religious participants. A 1998 study noted a link between intrinsic religiosity and obsessive–compulsive cognitions/behaviors only among Catholic participants. However, a 1991 study from

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found that no particular religion was more common among OCD patients, and that OCD patients were no more religious than other subjects with anxiety. Religious obsessions were connected to the participants' religiosity, but sexual and aggressive symptoms were not. Greater religious devotion among OCD patients was correlated with increased guilt. A 1984 study in ''

American Behavioral Scientist ''American Behavioral Scientist'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the fields of social and behavioral sciences. The managing editor is Laura Lawrie. It was established in 1957 by Alfred de Grazia and is currently ...

'' analyzed interviews with participants from Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant backgrounds. The author reported that most participants "eagerly described an experience of guilt." In 2004, Ulster University students participated in a study that found a slightly higher level of collective guilt among the Catholic students than the Protestant students. In 2008, researchers from the

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and from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

examined the concept of Catholic guilt among American teenagers. The authors found no evidence of Catholic guilt in this population, noting that Catholicism both caused and relieved less guilt than other religious traditions. The authors found no evidence that Catholic teenagers experience more guilt than non-Catholic ones. The authors did not find that more observant Catholics feel guiltier than less observant Catholics. The study noted no difference in the effect of guilt-inducing behaviors on Catholic versus non-Catholic participants. A 1988 study from

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reported no difference in total guilt among religions, although religiosity itself was connected to guilt.

Catholic viewpoint

According to the website Catholic Spiritual Direction, guilt is a by-product of an informed

conscience A conscience is a Cognition, cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's ethics, moral philosophy or value system. Conscience is not an elicited emotion or thought produced by associations based on i ...

but "Catholic" guilt is often confused with scrupulosity, and an overly scrupulous conscience is an exaggeration of healthy guilt. Phillip Campbell, an author with Catholic Exchange, wrote an article in February 2024 in which he insists that Catholic guilt is not real. He calls it "a trope wherein Catholics are said to be guilt-obsessed to the point of neurosis, wringing our hands about incidental personal flaws, exaggerating personal culpability, and loving suffering to the point of masochism" and that it plays upon stereotypes of Catholics by getting a fact correct but missing the point.

References

External links

Egan. Timothy. "The End of Catholic Guilt", ''The New York Times'', April 15, 2016
Guilt Stereotypes Catholic spirituality Catholic culture Culture-bound syndromes

Examples

Research

Catholic viewpoint

See also

References

Further reading

External links