TOPIC: Help Me Learn

Hi all,

So, thank you to everyone for reading my little post yesterday.

I was wondering if I could ask you to help me with something once more. As you now know, I have Asperger Syndrome, which is now defined as an ASD. This means I struggle with social scenarios, and occasionally have difficulties dealing with understanding social cues.

I recently had an issue with my family where they're linked to the church. I've made it known that I'm agnostic, but I've recently been seeing a priest as a form of therapy. They've been very helpful in letting me talk out my issues. Now, a family member is employed by the church as a cleaner.

They've worked there for many years and helped the church quite a bit. My family are quite friendly with a rather high-ranking member of the church, and I decided one day, for the purposes of my research into moral philosophy, to call up that member and ask them a rather simple question about ethics.

After the fact, I told the family member employed by the church that I'd done so, and they had a bit of a meltdown on me and suggested that it was incredibly out of line for me to do so, despite the high-ranking member being more than happy to speak with me about ethical matters. I apologized, and promised I wouldn't do it again - and this is the truth, I haven't reached out since. But while I understand somewhat where I went wrong, I also feel a bit like I'm still a bit lost.

I eventually spoke to my uncle about it this evening, and he was quite upset with me about it aswell, repeating the same points, but interrupting and ignoring my reasoning that I'd already been over this. He then threatened that if I did it again, he'd have words with me. I'm a little bit unsure why this matter is so severe, but from what I understand, it seems to be the equivalent of me calling up my mum's boss and asking personal questions, potentially putting her job at risk.

So, I was wondering if I could have this situation explained to me. Am I right in my assumption? Or is it a bit deeper than that?

I mean isn't a part of Church being a place where people can go for help, seek advice and guidance etc? you went and you did just that, nothing more. I feel like your family are overreacting and a job is not worth more than your needs

I don't see what's wrong man, like if you called up about ethics and it was like real shit such as asking the ethics of the Nazi party or some stuff like that i mean yeah, that is fucked up

I don't know what you asked in detail but i mean if i was that ppl who picked the phone i wouldn't be mad, nobody should be mad about someone asking about ethics regardless of their religion,sex and beliefs

well it depends on what you ask on because there are somethings that can be seen by a church to be a sin

Hey Watson, i'll try to help you the best I can from what I understood of your story. As a religious person myself (protestant), I can tell you that it is perfectly fine about being curious about -- and questioning the things you don't understand to people who know better than you (the priest in this case). I don't really know what this "ethical question" was, but I don't think it really matters as I would say that it is always better to ask questions about religious elements which don't make sense to you, so you could get guidance and advice on this matter.

However, it could actually depend on what you asked the priest, as catholic churches tend to be much more stricter about behavioural conduct and such. Nonetheless, it seems that the priest himself was happy to speak to you about the matters, so I would disagree on the part where you compared this scene to that of you calling up your mom's boss and asking personal questions. From what i've gathered, I don't think that you are in the wrong, and I think that the family member of yours is in the wrong here for not trying to help you understand the religion further, but instead is telling you off for thinking you potentially risked his/her job (which shouldn't be his/her priority imo). It would help though if you could tell us what the ethical question was, but this is the best I can do to help you understand the situation from the information I was given.

Your responses are extremely helpful, and I appreciate what you've contributed. For clarity:

1) I was raised Catholic, I do have knowledge of the workings of the Catholic church, and experience with sacraments and the like. I became agnostic around my teen years when my trauma started getting in the way of my life and I found it hard to believe.

2) As some of you have suggested, it might be prudent to actually tell you the question I asked.
"Intention vs Morality"
Basically, do intentions bypass a moral compass if the action needed to achieve the end goal - which may be fundamentally just - is unequivocally wrong?
E.g. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family.
While this may seem a very baseline question, I was curious about the church's stance on it, or at the very least, the stance of someone quite high up.

Father Watson wrote: Personally I don’t understand religion at all but if I were in the situation, even if I knew it was wrong I’d go through anything to keep my family fed. Things that aren’t as severe though I would act upon morals. I might not truly understand your question, but I wanted to try and help you at the very least.