u/tsoy_division

I am from a country where Catholics are very much a minority. I am talking less than 0.1% of an already small population. The majority of people are Muslim and are culturally Muslim even if they’re not practicing. I wasn’t raised religious but came to Catholicism while living abroad and now I am in my 20s, returning home, realising that the chances of me having a Catholic marriage and a family are slim to none.

Catholics aren’t persecuted but almost no one would be open to conversion or to raising their children in the church. Even if the person himself could consider it, their family would probably be against it and hence affect their decisions.

Should I just not expect to marry and have children? Or only seek relationships with foreigners?

I do attend Mass here and there’s a community but it’s mostly families, married couples and teenagers.

I wanted to send some trinkets and a chocolate bar to my friend in the US (shipping to the door), weighing at most 1kg, more likely 600-700grams and on DHL and similar providers I get a quote of 100K+ tenge??? For a “book-sized parcel”. Is that the norm? Maybe anyone has some experience with that and can offer a more affordable alternative

This is all super hypothetical but I am just curious. For example, if the priest saw someone steal or cheat 1 day ago and the next day that person comes to confession saying it has been 1 month since their last confession, and doesn’t mention anything about that stealing or cheating, would the priest normally ask them about it? Or is that fully on their conscience?

I am going to base it off a recent interaction I’ve had but this wasn’t a one off. It didn’t start off as any sort of debate or argument and I was just talking about priests. Then a queer woman goes ahead and calls a completely random priest gay. I figured she meant it as a joke but said it wasn’t very appropriate to talk about sexuality of a celibate religious servant. She then proceeded to show an article saying that many priests have homosexual attractions and I just said that it’s cool that anyone can find their vocation in priesthood. Her and other (I guess, queer or allies) people proceeded to call me disgusting and I got a ban warning from a subreddit?

Like what? Why do so many interactions end like this? I don’t want to call myself homophobic and see acting upon homosexuality as much of a sin as lying or or being judgmental or stealing or literally anything else. But interactions like these just make me unwilling whatsoever to participate in conversations with secular people because I think for the most part they simply don’t know or understand Catholicism. And then it becomes a numbers game because online spaces are generally super secular and boom you get insults, death threats and bans despite coming with an open heart and saying nothing hateful???

For context, this is like a 3-4 story apartment house kind of situation, a long building with a sidewalk. The neighbour's door is basically about a metre away from ours. She lives on the ground floor and also has a backyard/garden. I am renting, but my landlord said that the lady is known for being weird.

Apparently, she's had a past with animal cruelty, and I think she has (or at least had) not very sanitary conditions in the house, as she at some point acquired or attracted roaches, and my landlord, as well as all other neighbours, had to take extra measures to make sure the roaches don't migrate. I think that was 2 years ago, and hopefully no more roaches. But now, she started throwing food just outside of her door, practically on the sidewalk. Not just bread/breadcrumbs, but full-on food like cut-up vegetables, fruit, (possibly) meat? Seemingly, everything she didn't finish eating or whatever's expired and eventually, if it's not eaten by the animals, it starts stinking. Now we have a bunch of magpies, gulls, and pigeons constantly causing havoc outside the door and windows and pooping everywhere. I am really afraid of getting a mice/rat problem here because I've dealt with it before but luckily don't have it at the current house. With a neighbour like this, I think it could happen...

Also, to add to the animal cruelty thing, my roommate told me that a few days ago the lady told her how she was annoyed by her hamster, so she took it out with a cage into a park to leave it to die? Just like casually mentioned it to my roommate while she was outside for 2 minutes? Idk I just get major heebie jeebies from her

Is there anyone I can contact about this so they could maybe have a chat with her? I don't really want to confront her myself because 1. safety, 2. my Dutch isn't good enough