Raised Catholic/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A character's Catholic upbringing influences them, despite their being non-devout or non-practicing.
  • Played Straight: Alice wears a cross necklace, makes the sign of the cross, and references having been brought up Catholic, although it's been a year since she last went to church.
  • Exaggerated: Alice is a Knight Templar for Catholicism despite being an atheist.
  • Inverted: Alice was raised in a secular household, but in her adult life becomes a devout Catholic.
  • Justified: Alice loves family and traditions, so, despite not believing that weekly mass is essential to her salvation, holds to her faith as part of her upbringing and heritage.
  • Subverted: Alice references being "brought up Catholic" and wears a saint's medal and quite clearly breaks Church teachings early on. But she goes to confession soon afterwards.
  • Double Subverted: . . . out of habit. She repeats the behavior soon after and doesn't seem to regret it.
  • Deconstructed: Bob, a devout Catholic, thinks Alice is cheapening his belief system by calling herself a member while picking and choosing which teachings, if any, to follow.
  • Reconstructed: But Bob realizes that faith means something different to Alice than it does to him and that he can only control how he represents his faith, not the rest of the congregation.
  • Parodied: Alice never does anything without consulting the Pope himself, and has him on speed dial on her cell phone. She is a Hollywood Atheist.
  • Lampshaded: "I was raised a good, Catholic girl, but . . ."
  • Averted: Alice was raised Catholic, but chose to remain one through discernment and logic. Alternatively, Alice is a non-Catholic and was born that way.
    • Alice's religious or spiritual beliefs are never dealt with in-story.
  • Enforced: "Statistically, somebody should be religious, but we don't want their beliefs to get in the way of the plot too much."
  • Invoked: After Alice announces that she's unsure about her beliefs, her parents point out that not Catholics believe in all the Church's teachings and stay out of tradition, hoping continued exposure to church will change her mind.
  • Defied: As a teenager or young adult, Alice researches Catholicism and other religions so her faith is her own decision and not what she was raised to think.
  • Discussed: "Alice might call herself a Catholic, but it seems to be more of a heritage and less of a faith for her."
  • Conversed: "The 'Catholics' in these shows are always there out of habit; they never seem to believe in their religion."