Would some people "fake" a calling for the sake of a job?

As the saying goes, it's indoor work and no heavy lifting.

In the US, it's probably the easiest way to own a private jet if you're not a major rock star.

But seriously... losing one's faith is no joke when it can cost you your job, your home and possibly your relationship or family (I suppose RCs dodge that one)

Richard Dawkins and others set up The Clergy Project to provide support for clerics who no longer believe.

In Ireland, for a long time it was an escape route for those who did not wish to marry, if you get me. A route to respectability and indeed privilege, instead of condemnation and contempt.

I do wonder about popes, cardinals, archbishops and the likes, who usually spend many years studying theology over and above what the priest in a parish gets - does it never occur to them that it's all based on nothing other than hearsay? I strongly suspect the top guys are only too aware of this, but they're far too deeply invested in the sunk cost fallacy and they get a nice living off the sweat of others' brows.

If one person holds bizarre irrational beliefs, they're either weird or insane.

If millions of people hold bizarre irrational beliefs, it's a religion, and must be respected

That was why the RCC is against contraception. Son 1 gets the farm, son 2 might get an education, son 3 joins the clergy... and those who were too thick for that joined the "Christian" "Brothers"

There was a minor kerfuffle in my Dublin suburb in the late 70s. A son of one of the families across the road from us signed up for the priesthood, spent a few years getting a degree his family could not otherwise have afforded, then quit before becoming a made man. The tutting was audible from Earth orbit.

A few doors up, a good friend of my mother's suspected that her grandchild had not been baptised, so performed an impromptu ceremony in the kitchen sink.

They walk among us

A llittle harsh perhaps, but it's well known that study for the priesthood required completion of a degree before ordination, "brothers" did not require that. I'm sure your relative was a nice person who strove to make the world a better place, let's just say that not too many idealists ended up in Dublin's poorer suburbs.

How can anyone prove belief in anything? They can't. I could rhyme off all sorts of prayers learned off by rote in my childhood, despite not believing a word.

US evangelists are just successful manipulators of people. I hate what people call "charisma" - it's just a way of causing others to override their better judgment. This applies to politics too, of course!

1. You can fake a calling for the sake of a job.
2. But think twice. If the job requires a vocation that you haven't got, you're likely to hate being in the job. Is career misery a price you are willing to pay for prosperity?
3. Plus, you're fairly likely to do it badly, or at best in a mediocre fashion. So it's not likely to be a route to prosperity anyway.
4. Plus, even if you are sincere in your vocation, and good at your job, religious ministry isn't generally a route to prosperity. While there are a few fabulously wealthy televangelists in the US, for the great bulk of those working in ministry the pay is nothing to write home about. If you're going to fake it in some profession as a route to wealth, you'd be wiser to fake it in a profession that offers a better prospect of wealth. That's most professions, to be honest.
5. But if you're absolutely determined that faking it in religious ministry is the way to go, then what you should fake is being Jewish. On average rabbis are, by a considerable length, the best paid clergy of any religion or denomination.

Sounds like typical bitterness and begrudgery. Neighbours jealous that the "thicko" up the road actually fared out better than their own darling genius children 😀

A lot of the "Mammys" knew what their "special" son was, they couldn't put it in words, little Johnny wasn't "gay" he just had a "calling" and was forced into the church to hide him because sexuality didn't matter to a priest.

Probably more common than people think especially in politics. Your question immediately made me think of the former green party leader, previously a primary school teacher, school principal, local councellor and TD in north dublin from 1992 to 2011. After losing his dail seat, he went on to become a CofI priest around 2017 and is now Bunclody parish rector. If preaching through politics closes off, why not switch to the pulpit at almost sixty to share your views? Probably was a late calling though 😏😏.

Name one person who was killed up north on account of differing opinions about transsubstantiation.

But that is incorrect, they literally claim the contrary. That's the entire teaching. If you understood differently, you misunderstood. I'm not having a pop at your knowledge, if just that it's a really defining aspect various religions.

Many people probably do assume it is symbolic, it seems an obvious idea. But that's entirely at odds with the teaching of the church. And it's not a case of they don't say its symbolic, but we all know that's what they mean. It's specifically excluded that the presence as merely symbolic or figurative sense. It's defined as independent of the feelings of participants, whether they have faith or not.

Disagreeing with that view was a one of the key point during the reformation. Protestants generally hold a looser view that it's not corporally/physically the body of Christ, but spiritually (aka symbolic). Although different branches vary.

You're wrong. Catholic teaching states that the communion wafer is literally the flesh of JC himself.

@Peregrinus The orders/diocese might have been okay with the dropout rate, but the local "aul' wans" were not!

Late 90s I briefly dated a woman who had studied at Maynooth. According to her the seminarians were far from chaste, and not just with the ladies either!

Vicars get fine women 😀

Quite some years ago now I wrote an article on the Atheist Ireland website about doing some science experiments on said crackers. https://atheist.ie/2011/02/bringing-the-scientific-method-to-magic-crackers/

While not the height of my acheivements in life, that article did result in me meeting quite a few Catholics and talking to them on the subject. And I generally found that belief about the magic crackers fell into three camps. And while there was not an even split between numbers in each camp, it was clear to me that there was statistically significant numbers existing in each. So I would be a little cautious about declaring "no one" is being "codded".

The interesting thing to me overall though was not that these three camps existed. But how little conversation and communication was happening on the subject either from the pulpit or between the bums on seats. I met little old ladies who had gone together to mass for decades and never realised for one minute that they had massively differing opinions on what the magic cracker is or was supposed to be. For awhile I genuinely feared that I had ended a couple of life long friendships by making them discover this :/

But it struck me the reason why there was never people on the pulpit clarifying this stuff, or nice handy information pamphlets at the door making actual catholic belief on the subject clear....... was that being too specific on it risked losing bums on seats. Why come down heavily on one of the groups and risk alienating the other two groups? The Cynical part of me therefore hypothesized that rather than being interested in teaching Catholic Beliefs.... the church preferred to be as ambiguous as possible so as to maximise the number of people coming in the door.

Anyway the three camps I discovered in general were:

1) Those that believed a genuine physical change happened in the crackers. These were directly the subject of the article I wrote, given these were the only ones making a claim accessible by the scientific method.

2) Those that believed a real but entirely spliritual (and therefore convieniently entirely undetectable) change occured in the crackers.

3) Those that believed the entire ritual around the crackers was symbolic only and no change of any kind occured in the crackers themselves.

Not only did I find a significant number of group 1 existing that I got to talk to.... I also received a small but significant number of death threats and aggresive push back following the article itself. One of the contents of said messages occured a few times, which was that people likened my possessing and holding onto "consecrated" crackers to them coming to my house and abducting my daughter to kidnap and torture. A comparison that belies just how real they believed the transformation of the cracker to be. They literally saw my having it as being equivilant to me kidnapping and keeping an actual human person. And they demanded I release the prisoner(s). I did not and they still lie in a drawer here.... with absolutely no signs of decay like people claim about McDonals Fries :)

The fact it was a "bulk ordered" tasteless foodstuff appears not to have influenced their beliefs or opinions on the matter at all. Nor, it seems, did the fact that their belief amounts to ritualised cannabalism.

It's not just a little harsh - it's quite a bit wrong. My dad was a Christian Brother before leaving & having a family. They offered a route to further education that, in 1950's rural Ireland, wasn't going to be an option otherwise. Himself & his brother both signed up at 16, completed their secondary level educations & my dad got 2 degrees with his brother getting 1. My dad stayed on as a teacher & I think it was the teaching part that was his calling more than anything religious because he stayed doing that until retirement age. His brother left about a year after finishing his degree. That's what it was used for - to get an education or at least finish secondary (which was a higher achievement back then than currently as a lot left at 16). They provided lodgings & food so parents didn't have to worry.

Now I will say my dad's family was probably unusual in that his parents gave himself & his brother the choice (as opposed to others who just signed them up). But there definitely wasn't a religious calling for my dad. He believed in God but after leaving, he rarely went to mass (except for occasions). And for 20 years it provided a good education, job & life for him. Until he wanted a family & dipped! I doubt him & his brother were unique in that respect!

Suggesting the body of christ is just a crisp disagrees with and is offensive to both sides. Not sure what point your are getting at tbh.

The Troubles were nothing to do with different religious beliefs. I'm not surprised when people overseas are not aware of that, but genuinely am when Irish people are not.

The Garden of Gethsemane springs to mind...ouch!