"I wouldn't be a very spiritual man, right. I don't believe in God, right. Still, Catholic. Because there's nothing you can do when you're Catholic. Once you've started Catholic, frankly, there's no real way to stop being Catholic. Even not believing in God isn't regarded as sufficient reason to get out of the Catholic Church!"
There are many who were raised religious, and — even though their life has moved away from adamantly following their religion's doctrine — are still really concerned with their religion and/or cite it often. This comes up very frequently in any Good Girls Avoid Abortion conversation, as when a female character will suddenly be revealed as a "good Catholic" who just can't do it.
This also pops up a lot with many comedians, directors, and musicians. Even though they may be lapsed, converted to another religion, or are now atheists, religious imagery and topics often still appear in their works. There are also certain N-Word Privileges: a comedian who tells you they were raised religious is probably going to make a lot of religious jokes or observations about their faith, which might be deemed more offensive if it came from someone else. And if you were trying to be offensive, you'd want to offend something you've known and experienced all the reasons to dislike it the most.
This is common regarding immigrant populations who have a different religion than the predominant one in their new country: these groups' religion may become almost a shorthand for their culture in general, meaning that the two seem far more strongly linked than in a country where that religion is the majority.
This is especially common in Russian works, where the Orthodox Church is an institution and has a huge influence on the culture, but is largely seen as a means to an end (usually for marriage) and otherwise does not greatly impact individuals' personal lives. In much of Northern Europe, this applies to Finns, Norwegians, Swedes and Danes who are registered as members of their national Lutheran Churches, even though many rarely attend. The English and their church, casually referred to as as "COE" (the Anglican Church Of England), are so known for this they have a whole subtrope: Ambivalent Anglican.
A person's relationship with their faith often varies on a case-by-case basis: One may follow the tenets of their religion closely, another may selectively decide which teachings to abide by, and yet another may leave the faith entirely. Of course, this leaves out swathes of people who do not fit neatly into any of these particular categories, but documenting the varied perspectives and relationships that one may have with their personal religion would be an exercise in long-windedness.
Converts to their faith are almost never this trope due to never having grown up with it beforehand, and serve as a natural Foil to someone who is this trope; their decision to identify with the faith stems from conscious and deliberate decision, usually after much personal reflection and tend to follow the teachings of their newly adopted religion more closely, but are less impacted by the cultural aspects of the faith. That said, a person who is this trope (especially one who doesn't believe in the Church's doctrine) will often be puzzled by a convert's level of adherence to the faith they've become disconnected from, in spite the latter's lack of background in it.
Compare and contrast Ambiguously Christian, Ambiguously Jewish, and Informed Judaism. These characters (and creators) commonly invoke Love Is Like Religion. A character of this trope may decide to Turn to Religion and reconnect with their childhood faith after a life-changing event.
No Real Life Examples, Please! This is not an uncommon phenomenon in real life among real people — a full list of individual examples is not needed.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Huntress, aka Helena Bertinelli, of the Batman family and Birds of Prey, doesn't bring it up often, but she wears cross jewelry and prays before she fights Lady Shiva, possibly to the death. Her faith has varied in strength over the years, from non-existent (an important plot point in one story) to firm (but never devout). The strength of her faith is used as a symbol of how much hope and optimism she has for the future. In bad times, her faith declines. For example, after causing the death of a mob boss who knew her identity, she throws away her cross. In good times, her faith is stronger. For example, she plans on attending Mass after getting her teaching job and feeling accepted by the Birds of Prey.
- Runaways: Nico Minoru has a strange relationship with her Catholicism: she seems to look back on it fondly, but the fact that her parents were trying to raise her to be a good Catholic while being terrible criminals unnerves her. She used to be an altar girl. Her family has been Catholic since at least the 1900's, when her ancestor Witchbreaker hunted "sinners" alongside the Adjudicator and Black Maria. She's functionally non-religious, but turns back to her faith for comfort and security, something she bonds over with Victor.
Fan Works
- Nimbus Llewelyn is possibly excessively British and when asked about religion - in relation to God in his works - observes that he's "vaguely agnostic in the fine tradition of the Church of England."
- Tim Drake and his late father Jack both fall into this category in Angel of the Bat, though Tim eventually finds much of his faith again. Though she wasn't raised with the faith, by the end Cassandra is a deeply spiritual cafeteria Catholic mostly as a result of her pansexuality and the girl she starts dating. Even the author, who calls himself a deeply religious man, is also a big proponent of God Before Dogma.
- Ultra Fast Pony. In the episode "Faith to Faith":
Applejack: "Faithless heathen"? Screw you, I'll have you know I'm Catholic!
Twilight: Wait a minute. You're a Catholic?
Applejack: Yeah...
Twilight: But you don't believe in God.
Applejack: Of course I don't! I'm Catholic!
Films — Live-Action
- In Dogma, in the beginning, Bethany doesn't believe in God and works at an abortion clinic, but still goes to Mass every Sunday.
- Four Lions: Omar, the guy who gathers his friends together into a Muslim terrorist cell. He cares very much about his Muslim identity, which is why he's forming the terrorist cell, but but he doesn't actually live a pious life. From day to day he basically lives as an assimilated British person.
- Jennifer's Body: Needy appears to be nominally Catholic since her mom crosses herself after talking about Jesus' crucifixion; later, she calls on God along with a couple of saints while fighting Jennifer.
- The John Wick franchise uses lots of Christian imagery and terminology, such as Continental grounds considered consecrated and those who fall foul of the rules declared excommunicado. However, none of the characters express any real belief and discuss the afterlife as something that may or may not exist rather than definite.
- Gus from Late Night with the Devil wears a golden crucifix, and is the one voice of dissent against the sensationalist idea of trying to demostrate demonic possession on live TV. When the stunt goes off the rails, and the demon starts killing, Gus does try to drive the demon back with his crucifix, which unfortunately doesn't work.
Literature
- This is perhaps the most important theme in Brideshead Revisited; Catholicism has left an indelible mark on the souls of the errant Flytes (Lord Marchmain, Sebastian, and Julia), and all of them are eventually and almost inevitably reconciled with the Church.
- Cut and Run's Nick O'Flaherty is Irish Catholic. He makes no mention of going to church and isn't really shown praying, but he's apparently practicing enough to stop dead in the middle of an armed chase scene after running by a church and realizing he might be about to kill people on Easter Sunday. He makes sure to cross himself before his friends pull him back to the chase.
Nick: I'm going to Hell anyway, I don't know why I bother anymore.
- The Dracula Tape, Dracula is revealed to be actually a Traditionalist Catholic as religious artifacts don't have an effect on him, but he admits not being practicing anymore at the time he tells his side of the story. Still, he takes great offense at seeing communion wafers weaponized by Van Helsing and delightfully deconstructs how he got them wrong.
- In the Emberverse, Juniper MacKenzie was raised Catholic, and other characters observe that, despite having converted to Wicca, she still seems to be carrying her Catholic Guilt.
- Good Omens parodies this with the Satanic conspiracy working to bring about armageddon. Unlike the sort of self-proclaimed Satanists that you occasionally hear about on the news (described by Crowley as random mortal psychos who give even demons the creeps), rank-and-file members of the Ancient Conspiracy treat the Black Mass the same way that less devout Christians treat church: just a cultural tradition that you participate in once a week and then forget about the rest of the time. Even the nuns running the hospital where The Antichrist is delivered seem Affably Evil—all the better to present themselves as normal nuns to the American diplomat whose baby they plan to swap with the Antichrist (not to mention the local couple whose kid is accidentally replaced with the Antichrist instead).
- Jean Floressas des Esseintes from À rebours is a French aristocrat who moves off to a house in the countryside; he had a Catholic upbringing and was instructed by the Jesuits. At some point, he abandoned the faith and turned to the philosophical ideas of the German pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer. In spite of this, des Esseintes still owns some Latin works by the early Catholic authors, and he could not help but connect Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook with the resignation from the Imitation of Christ. At the end of the novel, he accepts that he has to go back to Paris (as his doctors told him), and he ultimately resigns himself to God.
- In the Stephanie Plum series, both Stephanie and her sister Valerie mention still having guilt instilled by a Catholic upbringing, even though neither actively practices the faith.
- These Words Are True and Faithful: Ernie identifies as a Catholic but does not observe that faith or even know anything about it beyond what he half-remembers from CCD.
- Cole St. Clair in Wolves of Mercy Falls Series is heavily implied to be this, without the title "Catholic" ever being used. He is seen holding a rosary, "Fingers grasping the beads as if the gesture was familiar" and later, an interviewer questions his belief in God, quoting Cole's former role as a choir boy. Given that Cole is now a Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll poster child, he is very much the lapsed sort.
- The Brentford Trilogy features Irish John Omally, who is, in his own words "... a Catholic. Not a good one, but a Catholic, nonetheless." While he seems to have little attachment to the faith in his everyday life and readily admits that the Church's answers to the great questions only raised more questions for him, he does occasionally seek out father Moity for spiritual advice and is willing to risk his life to defend the Church against the depravations of a demonic reincarnation of Alexander Borgia.
- Household Gods: Nicole was raised a Catholic. Though she's lapsed, the contempt Roman pagans have toward Christians even so strikes hard given her background.
- Father Brown: Used as a plot point in "The Vampire of the Village", when Father Brown (a Catholic priest) figures out the puritanical old village parson is a "stage" parson, that is, he's a mish-mash of multiple stereotypes about churchmen: the humorless "Stop Having Fun" Guy who's against The Wicked Stage, The Vicar who's clueless about human nature, etc. Not only has he been blackmailing a young man for years over a murder posing as his father, he committed the murder in the first place.
Father Brown: It is true, and it is not at all unnatural, that England does not know much about the Church of Rome. But England does not know much about the Church of England.
- The Wee Book of Calvin by Bill Duncan is a darkly humorous parody of self-help books about how to be a dour, pessimistic Scot. Duncan says he got the outlook from his grandparents, but while his grandmother was a typical Scots Presbyterian who believed hardship was the way of the world because God was testing them, his grandfather, like Duncan, was a resolute Unbeliever who maintained a Calvinist outlook anyway, believing that hardship was the way of the world because God either didn't exist or didn't care. Calvinism, in this book, is a state of mind rather than a religious belief.
Live-Action TV
- On 9-1-1, Eddie, who is notoriously anti-superstition to the point of mocking his colleagues who believe in the supernatural, nonetheless still has his Roman Catholic upbringing so deeply ingrained into him that finding out that his girlfriend Marisol once nearly became a nun results in him wanting to avoid sex with her because "God is watching" and "has eyes on the ground" via Marisol. At one point he even sees her as the Virgin Mary complete with Holy Backlight.
- Game of Thrones: Davos starts out as an atheist, but still instinctively invokes the Seven while seeing something as shocking as Melisandre getting heavily pregnant within days and giving birth to a shadow monster. He later comes to believe in her powers because of this (though he's still no fan of her god).
- Played for comedy with Mac in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, who only remembers his Catholic faith when he wants to complain or to criticize other people. In one episode Charlie and Mac are both okay with pre-marital sex and abortion but refuse to use birth control because "we went to Catholic school."
- The Goldbergs aren't exactly observant Jews - they have a seriously not-kosher diet involving seafood, pork and dairy sauce, often together - but have bar-mitzvahs, respect festivals like Channukah, and where weddings happen, they are in synagogues or with a Rabbi in attendance, under the canopy. Otherwise, religion doesn't figure. Grandfather Pop-Pops has complained in a restaurant about his family eating traife food, and in public insisted on his right to a kashrut choice. He has also protested about the Goldbergs celebrating Christmas in everything except name. Otherwise he has simply not bothered.
- On House:
- Chase was raised Catholic, and in the Season 1 episode "Damned If You Do" it is revealed that he attended seminary before becoming a doctor. It's always interesting when the episode has nuns in it or otherwise mentions religion and God. He zigzags from one end of the belief/skepticism spectrum to the other throughout the series. One season 8 episode sees him fall in love with a novice nun patient and try to lure her away from the Church. His efforts actually get a What the Hell, Hero? from House himself.
- When House meets Cuddy's mother, she talks about converting to Judaism as a necessary condition for marrying Lisa. House bluntly replies that he's an atheist, and she immediately retorts "half the Jews I know are atheists", and that being part of a community is what's important.
- The A-Team has Templeton Peck, who was raised in Catholic orphanages. Most certainly falls into either the lapsed or recovering groups, as he had no qualms with impersonating a priest if the con asks it of him.
- Jack Killian from Midnight Caller is a lifelong Catholic, although he isn't very devout.
- Curb Your Enthusiasm occasionally has Larry, a firmly secular Jew, experience a culture clash with friends and relatives who actually practice. In one episode, he has a conversation with an man who keeps peppering his speech with Yiddish, prompting an annoyed Larry to start responding in gibberish. In another episode, an Orthodox houseguest grills him on where his milchig plates are, to the utter confusion of his Shiksa Goddess wife.
- The Wire
- When union boss Frank Sobotka and Police commissioner Stan Valchek butt heads over whose stained glass window will be added to the new Nave of the church, but it's implied neither man attends mass. Jimmy McNulty also is very ambiguously Catholic whose faith only seems to rear its head when he spurns Bushmills as Protestant whiskey.
- The drug game of Baltimore also has shades of this in the "Sunday Truce" it respects for the sabbath. Avon and Slim Charles are not churchgoing men either, but both are appalled that Stringer Bell lets two gunmen violate the truce by shooting at Omar and his mother as they attend church.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer has Caleb, a serial killer who used to be a priest. He now serves the First Evil as The Dragon but still wears the clothes of a priest because he "can't turn his back on where he comes from." He also condemns secular public schools and says misogynistic things.
- The Looming Tower: O'Neill is a lapsed Catholic but one of his girlfriends is devout and the weight of his sins is very heavy on his shoulders. He cares enough about it that rather than just divorce his wife (which could result in his excommunication), O'Neill pursues an annulment, but it doesn't work.
- This comes up from time to time in Yes, Minister with most of the main characters being culturally Anglican without demonstrating any real interest in religion beyond what is expected for a person in their position.
- The episode The Bishop's Gambit deals with this quite a bit. As PM Hacker has to appoint a new Bishop and the candidate that the Church of England wants is basically an atheist, despite being a member of the clergy. Sir Humphrey insists that this is fine since most senior clergy are atheists anyway and that the Church is more of a cultural institution than a religious one.
- L.A.'s Finest: Syd is shown going to a Catholic church, discussing things inside with the priest, but says she isn't ready to confess just yet. Nancy also dips her hands in the holy water font and crosses herself too when going into a Catholic church in a later episode. Syd then tells her she's 'dabbled' with Catholicism, while neither seems to practice it much outside these gestures.
- Mindhunter Gregg Smith, the unpopular fourth wheel agent assigned by Assistant Director Shepard to the BSU has a Catholic father and a Quaker mother, and tells that their family jokes they'll "never run out of guilt or oatmeal". In his previous position, he was known as "The Padre", and other agents would come to him to talk about their troubles. Gregg is extremely Lawful Good, and wants to take on the job of combating serial killers because he has daughters who he very genuinely wants to make the world safer for.
Radio
- In one episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Finnemore describes himself as having some version of this, which is precisely why he's more comfortable making jokes about Christianity than Islam:
John: I mean, you know the way people are always saying, you know, "they're sorry but this is a Christian country?"
Margaret: Yes, and if you're going to say it's not, just because...
John: No, no, I think it is. I think they're right. I mean, it's a country in which people practice a lot of religions and none, but its history, its literature, its culture are all bound up in Christianity, and most importantly 70% of the population still tick Christianity on the census form. I think it is a Christian country and I grew up in it. I've read the Bible, I've been to church. I have a connection with those stories, even if I don't believe in them. Whereas I've never read the Koran or been to a mosque. I don't know what a funny imam sounds like!
Stand-Up Comedy
- David Cross jokes in one of his comedy specials that despite being an atheist, Judaism still considers him to be a Jew due to his lineage. He acts out a conversation in which he affirms his atheism only to be asked, "But was your mother's vagina Jewish?"
- Dylan Moran has a lot of jokes about Catholic guilt that he holds on to despite being an atheist.
- Suzy Eddie Izzard has gone from agnostic to atheist and loves to crack jokes about the hypocrisy and inconsistency that is prevalent in organized Christianity. But she also points out that religion has left an indelible mark on her life — as religious study is compulsory in English state schools — and mentions in "Wunderbar" that she lights candles in church for her parents in spite of not having any religious beliefs.
Web Animation
- Raimi from Broken Saints has a lot of snark reserved for supposedly supernatural practices and is far from reverent in his inner monologue, but still has a crucifix on his wall at home and carries some Catholic guilt.
Web Comics
- John, an Author Avatar and main character in The Word Weary, makes the sign of the cross when he hears a siren
and has an icon of the Virgin Mary in his room, but seems to be a lapsed Catholic.
- Brian, Rowan, and the rest of the Fitzpatrick siblings from Rhapsodies. Neither appears to practice, but they still use the Virgin Mary's name in vain and get dragged to confession by their mom.
Web Original
- While Brad Jones considers himself an agnostic, it's mentioned in his reviews that he attended Sunday School and has Christian friends. This is especially evident in his DVD-R Hell skewering of Rock: It's Your Decision and Deception of a Generation.
- The late programmer and TempleOS creator Terry A. Davis grew up in a Catholic household and became an atheist until he had a "revelation" from God that ordered him to build the Third Temple of Jerusalem in software format and became a born-again Christian of an unclear denomination. Though he expressed disdain for Catholicism (especially towards the Pope and the Irish) he admitted in an infamous TempleOS blog post that at some point in his life he fantasized about leading an "Catholic army" like in Dune composed of Mexicans and Brazilians (both belong to Catholic-majority countries).
- Zolister tells Ivory in Episode 5 of WHITEPINE that his parents were Christian, and implicitly that he was raised as one as well, which explains why he’s knowledgeable about what happens in a Cathedral despite being a professed non-believer like her.
