And I suppose I should mention that I was part of Christian cult in my childhood. We had our own school, and one of the books I was required to read was Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Much of the tortures described therein were horrific, but there were a few that got me aroused. ;-)
In my "historically Catholic" country, First Communion is kinda dying out, but it’s still a thing—mostly for the party and social stuff, not because anyone is super religious. Actually, most people here just don’t believe in anything anymore. LOL.
But in my family, it’s basically mandatory. We’ve got one side of the family that’s super churchy, and there’s this one grandma who would seriously lose it if the kids didn’t do Communion. XD
The annoying part is, the bishops and Rome and all say you need two years of catechism (classes) first. Everyone HATES it, and so do the priests, because organizing classes three afternoons a week for 2 years is insane. Further, they have to do it all with unpaid volunteers. Yeah, they don’t even get paid! Back in the day, it was parents, the priest, or some assistant who’d teach. But now, with everyone crazy busy and barely anyone going to church, and hardly any young-ish priests left, it’s a total disaster.
So now, in a lot of places (like where I live), any warm body with a pulse and without a criminal record, who knows the basics of Catholicism (and that can be “the very basics” sometimes, LOL), gets snapped up like a miracle. And if you're a woman, gravy, because well, you know, we're assumed to not commit sexual crimes and stuff.
But obviously, this doesn’t hold up. There’s insane turnover, people come and go, and sometimes there aren’t even classes because they can’t find anyone to teach.
So, in the end, this whole setup ends up pulling in some seriously weird people, especially around the times of year when it’s hardest to find volunteers. Not like
bad people, not necessarily, but definitely weirdos. LOL
For us, there was this super-intense lady who was all about making us girls memorize these totally random martyr stories of early Christian girl saints: both Saint Eulalias (one from Barcelona, one from Mérida), Saint Faith of Agen (literally grilled), Saint Engracia and her maid Julita, Saint Prisca, Saint Barbara, Vasilissa of Nicomedia, Saint Sophia and her three daughters (who I found out later aren’t even Catholic saints—they’re Orthodox, but she didn’t care LOL), and tons more. All this was supposedly to, like, ‘strengthen our faith,’ I guess? But you should’ve seen how her eyes would light up with every gory detail. LOL
And then she’d make us write these essays about it all, in our own words, and do games and activities and all that stuff. So, i’m not saying this is what got me into this thing—I know that "it was there" before—but it totally helped shape the vibe! XD