What is Catholic Guilt?

Published June 17, 2020

Have you done something wrong lately? Has it made your chest feel incredibly heavy? Are you still pining over what you did as if it just happened? Do you feel like you’ve wronged God in a way? And are you ashamed to talk to Him about what you’ve done?

If you answered “yes” to the first three questions, don’t worry. You’re just like every other human being with a working conscience. You’re guilty. 

But if you also answered “yes” to the next two questions, you might be feeling extra guilty. That could be coming from your Catholic guilt.

What is Catholic Guilt?

Before we get to that, we first must answer the fundamental question of “why do we feel guilty?” 

Psychologists have long since studied this phenomenon. Sigmund Freud associated the unconscious need for punishment with the unconscious sense of guilt. 

From a cognitive point of view, guilt is an emotion we feel when we believe we’ve deeply hurt someone. The cognitive point of view tells us that it is our thoughts that control our feelings. That lingering guilt immediately follows our thoughts that we’ve caused pain, whether they’re true or not. 

The degree of the guilt we feel varies from person to person. That degree could be a result of how our parents raised us and what values they imparted on us. 

What Makes Catholic Guilt Different From Regular Guilt?

You’d have to be Catholic to experience Catholic guilt (It’s kind of in the name). But really, it is the overbearing guilt experienced by people of faith. Catholic guilt is likely to have stemmed from the rigid teachings of the church. It is this feeling that you’re naturally born sinful and should always be guilty of that.

I was a Catholic for a big chunk of my life, and I know exactly how it feels. Like other religious orders, the Catholic faith has its own set of rules and customs you should follow. Growing up, I always had this unsettling feeling when I would break those rules. 

When left unchecked, Catholic guilt could get bad quick. In its most extreme form, it can turn into “scrupulosity.” Scrupulosity is the obsessive-compulsive disorder to certain religious practices or teachings. Scrupulosity is that tiny voice in your head that constantly screams at you not to step on little eggshells of Catholicism. In essence, it turns what is a beautiful faith into something so trivial. 

Scrupulosity fills your head with unnecessary anxieties and worries that you’re somehow sinning when you’re not. Some symptoms include excessive concerns on blasphemy, purity, going to hell, and behaving morally. 

Is It Bad to Feel Catholic Guilt?

Guilt is not exactly constructive. Some would say that it’s more egocentric than you’d think. If you apologize to someone, is it because you want to get rid of the guilt you’re feeling? Or is it because you genuinely care about the person and are sorry for what you’ve done?

You might want to ask yourself the same thing when feeling Catholic guilt. Am I heartily sorry for what I’ve done against the Lord? Or do I want to rid myself of this heavy burden? Many times, we put importance on things that are not all that important to God. And as many times, we act out of fear for the whip instead of out of love. 

My problem with Catholic guilt is that it often makes us stray from what God truly wants for us. It is contradictory to how He intended us to be. Were we not made in his image and likeness? (Gen 1:27 NIV) It is by that virtue that I think we should live life gratefully and gracefully.