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tsimionescu 18 hours ago

No, he's not. Just look at the life of an average Catholic person and the life of an average Scientologist, or better yet, the life of an average Jonestown resident before the suicide, and see the obvious differences. Note also how little the life of an average Catholic differs from that of an average non-religious person in the same country.

I would be completely fine with saying that there do exist cults operating within the Catholic Church. Arguably, monasteries, especially the more isolated ones, are very much cults, with the cloistered lifestyle, complete dedication to the faith, strict authority, and requirement to cut previous ties to join, plus cutting ties if deciding to leave. I'd even agree that the priesthood constitutes somewhat of a cult, for similar reasons.

However, claiming that all of the hundreds of millions of lay Catholic believers are members of a cult is ludicrous.