As a Roman-Catholic I myself feel nothing of the sort. Quite opposite of, actually. Belonging to the Church founded by the apostle Peter, under the aegis of God, is very liberating.
Protestants do not grasp the concept of Catholics being both free and obedient at the same time because they use a completely different theological dictionary and reference point.
Protestant obedience has its roots in Islam and the parallels to the teachings of Calvin and Mohammad are frightening. Both demand complete submission as the functioning definition of obedience. Further, both preach predestination which negates the need for freedom.
The Catholic Church defines obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.
The Church affirms that God created us in freedom and with it obliges us with consequences exercise it. Freedom is the power to act or not to act, and so to perform deliberate acts of one's own. Freedom attains perfection in its acts when directed toward God, the sovereign Good. Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly belong to him.
Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in religious and moral matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of man. But the exercise of freedom does not entail the putative right to say or do anything.
Within this context it is obvious why those who have rejected Christ's Church in the name of repressors who call themselves reformers just don't get it.
Unfortunately, many of your coreligionists on this forum are infected with a form of political correctness thinking that manifests itself like dispatches from Move-On.
Thanks for saying that,I totally agree. I have often been asked to what or to whom I attributed my "free spirit" and the asker is usually surprised at my answer,which is to my Catholicism.
It is very liberating to know that God gave a promise to His Apostles and their successors to be with them to the end and understand what that means. It allows me to focus on the myriad of problems confronting the world and humankind undergirded and encompassed by by my Faith with confidence,knowing that my decisions and actions will be in concert with God's Will.
Additionally,it is also a great time saver to be able to establish whether or not a fellow Catholic will discern and see things as I do by merely asking if they are an orthodox Catholic,if they are we can get right down to the issue at hand and not spend time with the asides.