Why is Catholicism so steeped in guilt?
Catholicism is not a religion of guilt; it is a religion of grace. Grace is the very life of God imparted to our souls in Baptism, which makes us partakers of the divine nature and enables us to do good and avoid evil. For some reason, however, it seems that many Catholics have lost sight of grace. Catholic educators have not emphasized it, and so most Catholics are painfully ignorant of this central concept. They have been taught the Ten Commandments, the Six Commandments of the Church, and a bunch of other “do’s” and “don’t’s”, but have not been told where the power to follow all these commands comes from. So many of them try really hard to do everything right on their own, and keep falling short. They become discouraged, and guilt sets in! Some of them were also inculcated with a hyper-strict moral system which bears more resemblance to the Jansenist heresy than Catholic moral theology. The overemphasis on sin creates scrupulosity, and coupled with repeated failure accentuates the g
