I loved and enjoyed going to this church because everyone is very nice, priests always make the funniest jokes to entertain the weekly Mass, and the people are very supportive to the LGBTQ+ community which I claim to be a member of.
However, I stopped going to this church due to a die-hard Catholic person named Joshua (the youth leader) was a huge problem to me. Please be aware of him if you can. He is a very nice and sweet person but, he always harasses me by proselytizing. Joshua keeps following me around when Mass is over especially when I walk to a different direction, pressures me to read the Bible, quizzes me over biblical scripts/stories that I don’t know nor read, and pushes me to do something that I don’t want to (e.g., downloading the Bible app on my phone before going home, joining the youth group and events, and inviting a friend to the church when I told him that he is NOT a Catholic adherent). He clearly does not understand what the answer “no” means then gets frustrated asking me why I am hesitant to do things that he tells me to do. It’s also petty that he usually sparks a little argument with me over a simple “no” answer. Another thing to add about him is that he often speaks nonsense. For instance, I shared him my painful story about being blatantly bullied by a cruel, idiotic coworker (who also believes in God) that I worked with for 2 years, and I was diagnosed with PTSD from that toxic workplace. I also told Joshua that the coworker always cussed me out, called me names in Spanish, gossiped about my embarrassing/unintentional mistakes to other coworkers, retaliated me for reporting the incidents to HR, and bullied me badly in many other ways. I wasn’t the only victim but, many customers at my old workplace were mistreated by him too and he was always defended by the ignorant managers. Joshua says things like “I’m sorry to hear that you and other people went through those rough moments but, it’s not your ex-coworker who was an a-hole doing all of this to our society. It’s the devil that is controlling him” also “God wants to put you and him together despite that you are a victim of him”. ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. Anyways, I am not a religious person but, keeping my faith in God, doing good things, and going to Mass should be enough for the community. As I keep feeling uncomfortable with his constant harassment, I told my family and friends (who are also Catholic) about him. They asserted that he crosses the line and it’s best to avoid him at all cost because who knows if he is a leader or member of a cult because his actions has gone too far. I literally miss many sweet people there but, I couldn’t help with Joshua harassing/proselytizing me every time when there are many other people around to talk to at church. So, why me? No thanks. I won’t become a victim of a luring cult.