What is a Cult?
Carol Giambalvo's Cult Information and Recovery
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/carol2180/wcult.htm

Rick Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults and Movements
http://www.rickross.com/

Sources of Cult Characteristics.....Total # of Characteristics

American Family Foundation....................14
University of California at Berkeley..........19
Cult Information Centre.......................31
Carol Giambalvo (cult expert).................13
Rick Ross (cult expert).......................20
Steven Hassan (cult expert)
(taken from the BITE analysis)................26
John Hochman, MD (psychiatrist)................7

A description of each characteristic according to these experts can be found here:
http://www.sspx-cult.com/CultCharacteristics.htm

DIFFERENCES between the Catholic Church and Cults

Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has sources of authority other than the leader
(the Pope), such as the Bible, Church Law, and writings by other Catholic authorities.

Cults
The leader is the sole source of authority for the group.

Catholic Church
A new member clearly knows what the organization is that he (she) is joining,is warned in advance about what is expected, and what he (she) can and cannot do, often has to wait for several months to a year before joining the Church to make sure that the obligations of being a Catholic are understood.

Cults
A new member is deliberately deceived about the obligations of belonging to the group. Cult recruits often attend a cult activity, are lured into "staying for a while," and soon find that they have joined the cult for life, or as one group requires, members sign up for a "billion year contract...." , is not warned in advance about what is expected, and what he (she) can and cannot do, is often duped into joining a cult during the course of a weekend, which was supposed to be a fun weekend with some new friends, or it could even have been advertised as a weekend seminar to quit smoking or lose weight.

A member of the Catholic Church retains freedom of politics, friends, family association, selection of spouse, and information access to television, radio, reading material, telephone, and mail.

Cults restrict the access that members have to outside sources of information, and tell cult members that their families and former friends are "evil" or "sinners" because they don't belong to the cult.

A member of the Catholic Church is told to remain in the Church, but is never physically forced to remain.

Members of a religious cult are physically forced, if necessary, to remain in the group. Sometimes group members who try to leave are kidnapped and brought back to the group. Members the cult group in Jonestown Guyana who tried to resist the order from Jim Jones to commit suicide were gunned down by other cult members.

Medical and dental care are available, encouraged, and permitted for members of the Catholic Church. History shows that the Catholic Church was the first one to build hospitals, and provided free medical care to those who could not afford it.

Many cults discourage and sometimes forbid medical care.

Catholic ChurchTraining and education received in Catholic schools are usable later in life. History shows that the Catholic Church was the one building schools and universities when no-one else was during the so-called "Dark Ages." Cults do not necessarily train a person in anything that has any value in the greater society.

In the Catholic Church, public records are kept. Members have access to their own records.

Cult records, if they exist, are confidential, hidden from members, and not shared.

A system of Church Law is provided within the Catholic Church. A Church member can also utilize legal and law enforcement agencies and other representatives of the civil law if needed. In cults, there is only the closed, internal system of justice, with no appeal or recourse to outside support.

Families of Church members talk and deal directly with Catholic schools. Children may attend Catholic or non-Catholic schools.

In cults, children, child rearing, and education are often under the absolute control of the cult leader.

Catholicism respects the laws of the land. The Catholic Church negotiates a concordat with the government of every nation, in which the Church and the state agree upon any exemptions from the civil law that are available to Church members.

Cults consider themselves above the law, and are a law unto themselves, and cult leaders are accountable to no one, not even their members.

A Church member gets to keep his (her) money, property, gifts and inheritances. Pope Leo XIII wrote defending private property in his encyclical "Rerum Novarum," May 15, 1891.

In many cults, members are expected to turn over to the cult all money and worldly possessions.

Rational behavior is valued in the Catholic Church. Elsewhere we have proven that the Catholic Church has condemned those who discourage the use of reason and rational thinking. Cults discourage members from thinking independently, and their normal thought processes are stifled and broken.

The right for members of the Catholic Church to make suggestions and offer criticism to Church leaders is protected by Church Law.

The cult leader is always right, and the members who disagree, as well as all outsiders, are always wrong. Members who criticize the leader are ridiculed and often treated violently, or may simply be expelled from the group.

Church members cannot be used for medical and psychological experiments without their informed consent.

Cults essentially perform psychological experiments on their members through implementing so-called thought-reform processes without members' knowledge or consent.

Reading, education, and knowledge are encouraged by the Catholic Church. It was the Catholic Church that preserved books and learning, and which founded the first universities, and which brings education wherever Catholic missionary effort goes.

If cults do any education, it is only in their own teachings. Members come to know less and less about the outside world; contact with or information about life outside the cult is sometimes openly frowned upon, if not forbidden.

The Catholic Church looks for new members among all races and classes of people. The Church does not concentrate their search for new members among the lonely and the vulnerable and the wealthy.

Cults do not look for new members with equal effort among all races and classes of people. Cult concentrate their recruiting efforts among certain groups: Cults target the lonely and the vulnerable.
Cults target rich individuals.

In the Catholic Church, physical fitness is never discouraged. In some monastic orders, like the Dominicans, physical fitness exercises are mandatory.

Cults rarely encourage fitness or good health, except perhaps for members who serve as security guards or thugs.

Adequate and properly balanced nourishment is never discouraged by the Catholic Church. Catholic religious orders make balanced meals at regularly scheduled times mandatory for all members.

Many cults encourage or require unhealthy and bizarre diets. Typically, because of intense work schedules, lack of funds, and other cult demands, cult members are not able to maintain healthy eating habits.

In the Catholic Church, many methods of instruction and education are used, but brainwashing, or thought-reform, is not used.

Cults influence members by means of a coordinated program of psychological and social influence techniques, or brainwashing.

--adapted from: "Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives," by Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Jossey-Bass publishers, 1995. and found at http://www.sspx-cult.com/ChurchCult.htm

To the above, which is an excellent contrast, I would add the following. The process of formally entering the Catholic Church for adults is called RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) and normally takes 6-12 months with formal "entry" into the Church occurring during the Easter Vigil Mass. While the quality of RCIA programs can vary substantially among Catholic Parishes and Dioceses, I believe there are some very healthy common threads:

1) Entrance into the Catholic faith must be a free-will, informed decision. There is no coercion. In some cases people withdraw from the process entirely and they are never ostracized or threatened with "the judgement of God" for so doing. In other cases, some folks repeat the RCIA class prior to making their final decision to enter the Church.

2) The RCIA process is about teaching the distinctives of the Catholic Church and its history NOT about judging the validity of one's own "personal relationship with Jesus". Other Religions and especially other Christian communities are respected. While some of the differences are highlighted during the process, the focus (at least in my experience) is about preparing to be Catholic NOT on slamming the group that you may have departed from.

3) The Catholic Church does not present its "doctrine" as "having all of the answers" for personal, marital, or family needs. For example, members (and potential members) are encouraged to learn Philosophy, History, and embrace sound psychological help if needed -EVEN when these things reveal some of the darker parts of Catholic history.

4) Diversity in viewpoints is tolerated. To be sure there are some sub-groups that are "far to left" and "far to the right" in the Catholic Church and some of the most extreme groups can hold points of view that are very intolerant and in the worst cases mind-numbing. However, on the whole, at the Diocesan level where the vast majority of Catholics live out their faith, there is a great deal of freedom and "normalcy".

5) Advanced education, philosophy, art, literature, fine wine, dance, and great music are all part of the Catholic experience -even at the Parish level. Catholics know how to live!

6) There is no ambiguity about what the Catholic teaches on all critical matters of faith and morals. Anyone can consult the Catehcism of the Catholic Church and learn exactly what is taught. The Catechism is academically sound and heavily footnoted with copious references to Holy Scripture, Church History, Theologians, and Church Councils.

7) The Catholic Church is universal and very diverse in its membership with respect to racial, national, and socio-economic demographics. Yet the Catholic Church is focused on the locale. In the Catholic faith the "geo-graphical will of God" is where YOU LIVE, unless of course you are (by your own free will) part of a special religious order and you have taken vows of obedience. Otherwise, you are free to pursue the location that is best for you own family and personal economics, etc.

Good post, Brian. It further debunks the myths of Catholicism generated by the paranoid Christian Taliban.

World Youth Day: http://www.wyd2008.org/index.php/en

even Hip Hop!!! http://www.phatmass.com/hiphop/