Needs Help: Raised Catholic

And "raised" means you had this thing drilled into you as a kid, even if you no longer follow it and now just have decades-old habits.

I fail to see how my friend (a completely lapsed Catholic for more than two decades) eating fish or dairy food on Fridays is cultural. But I can see how it's how he was raised.

Edited by Stanisz on Feb 23rd 2022 at 11:01:35 AM

Diet is as much a part of culture as anything else.

Yeah, culture is a lot of things.

Yes, not eating certain foods on certain days definetely can be considered a cultural practice. A handshake, a language, a kind of joke, a celebration, a popular verse, all that is part of popular culture. Besides, I think saying "raised" on such contexts is quite pejorative, not to mention it is ambiguous, since raised doesn't mean "formerly". The majority of the examples were "this character was raised as a Catholic" because that was what the title said.

Edited by good-morning on Feb 23rd 2022 at 4:40:18 PM

The fact that "raised" doesn't mean "formerly" probably has a lot to do with why this trope saw so much misuse — people interpreted the previous name literally, even though characters having a Catholic upbringing isn't a trope on its own.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 23rd 2022 at 1:50:02 PM

Exactly. "Culturally" doesn't imply anything religious, just that you still follow the religions culture.

Let me get this straight: "Raised" was taken literally, but "Culturally" won't be? Ok then, do it your way. Just don't be surprised when people will misuse it on the same logic as they are misusing Raised Catholic currently.

Also, to all the people commenting on diet: way to miss the point. Or you want to tell me fasting on Fridays is really that obscure fact about Catholics?

"Raised [Catholic]" and "Culturally [Catholic]" are both preexisting terms used outside the wiki. In general use, the former does not carry the implication of being lapsed or non-practicing, at least not nearly to the extent that the latter does.

(If anything, you could argue that the latter doesn't imply having ever been a practicing believer, only someone who grew up around them.)

I think users could again misuse it for any character expressing religious practices at all (that's why something like Culturally Religious Non Believer could be clearer imo, but even that could exclude characters who only changed of religion), but is better than "raised" if we are going to keep the trope, especially now that the trope doesn't focus solely on Catholicism anymore.

Edited by good-morning on Feb 24th 2022 at 9:20:12 AM

We do have Ambiguously Christian for characters who seem to express religious (especially Christian) practices, but doesn't explicitly affirm or deny the faith.

Wick cleanup is done, so closing.