That's what Catholicism has become for many people and it's costing the Church adherents.
I grew up Pentecostal and my experience was very different. There was a lot of emphasis on trying to achieve a direct connection to and experience of God.
Now I won't claim that I'm still a born again Pentecostal. But I regard the experience as essential to my views of God and spirit. I had moved through a period of atheism, but I couldn't shake the idea that there was more to reality than just the material world and I haven't stopped trying to learn about the nature of God and what God is.
My wife, on the other hand, is a pure atheist at this point and sees little difference between the rituals of Catholicism and voodoo.
And she's not the only former Catholic I know like that.
There's something about Catholicism that kills spiritual curiosity and freedom. It seems to me to be the religious analog of the secular, bureaucratic, and soul killing government university where there are official truths that can't be questioned and authorities tell you what to think.
And so whose fault is it that your wife's understanding of Catholicism never matured beyond the coloring book stage?
That's what Catholicism has become for many people and it's costing the Church adherents.
If that's the case then so be it. Even Pope Benedict XVI said that the Church of the future would be smaller. If people are too ignorant to understand the theology behind "rituals" and the purpose of a priest then let them go to a rock band "church" and be entertained.
My wife, on the other hand, is a pure atheist at this point and sees little difference between the rituals of Catholicism and voodoo.
With respect that's because your wife is ignorant. As someone who claims to be a Christian you have a husbandly duty to do what you can to correct that deficiency. .
There's something about Catholicism that kills spiritual curiosity and freedom.
Try going into a Catholic Church, sit in a pew, look at a stained glass window and meditate on its contents then come back and tell me about the death of spiritual curiosity within Catholicism. And just what the heck is spritiual freedom anyway? This is not a democracy. You don't get to vote on what is Truth.
seems to me to be the religious analog of the secular, bureaucratic, and soul killing government university where there are official truths that can't be questioned and authorities tell you what to think.
That's a laugh. And the primary reason for this error. Who would conflate spiritual Truth with secular institutions?