Cafeteria Catholic
A Cafeteria Catholic, or Catholic in name only, is someone who is a member of the Roman Catholic church and yet picks and chooses which of the Church's doctrines he will believe. A Catholic is supposed to believe in the entire teachings of their faith, all the bible liturgy, and all church mandates. In particular, those terms are often used to refer to a self-identified Catholic who rejects the bishops' teachings on abortion.
Catholic Democrats are most often associated with Cafeteria Catholics because their party ideology believes in abortion as a right and also in gay marriage. This is in direct opposition to what Catholics are taught. By no means is the practice exclusive to Democrats. Catholic Republicans who believe in the necessity of capital punishment are also considered Cafeteria Catholics. However, the Church teaches that the guilty put to death in no way equals the innocent death of children in the womb, an intrinsic Evil.
Other examples of the pick-and-choose approach include Catholics who deny there is a Hell or state that Moses did not part the Red Sea or that Mary was not Immaculate. By Canon law, a Catholic believing other than what the Church teaches is guilty of heresy and should not take Holy Communion. Most Cafeteria Catholics ignore this and take Communion anyway, which is a Mortal Sin. The Church believes that such a person is separated from the Holy Spirit, even without direct excommunication from Church authorities.
An extreme form of a cafeteria Catholic is a cultural Catholic. A cultural Catholic is someone who has a strong emotional attachment to Catholic social and cultural identity, but who does not understand Catholicism and does not seriously follow its ethical teaching. The majority of Catholics in the world are believed to be cultural Catholics.[1]