Catholicism makes no promises of giving you certain feelings, as far as I'm aware and neither does Eastern Orthodoxy. But I do get your point and was in a similar position to you, thinking the RC was spiritually hollow, until the devil had a say in the matter and I had to reach out to all the denominations locally for spiritual help. The clergy of the Orthodox Church I was attending turned their back on me. To be fair to free-church protestants, a group did offer prayers, but the only effective help I got was from a Dominican priest. And that led me back to the Church of my childhood.
And if you don't think Jesus is active in the Catholic Church, then I beg to differ with you. I've been back in the RCC for coming up to 4 years and have had profound, even miraculous, experiences and heard the testimonies from many who've had life changing, conversion experiences. But I equally accept such experiences happen in all denominations that practice the Gospel and adhere to the fundamentals of the faith: to confess Jesus Christ is Lord, to love the Lord thy God and to love your neighbour as yourself.
If you had prayed earnestly for a deeper relationship with God while in the Catholic Church, God would've responded and led you into one.
My experiences with Catholicism have been hit or miss. I was born into the faith, fell away for a while and then came back.
A lot experiences of people fall into a cognitive generalization error because it’s church and region specific.
I’ve seen some bad stuff in my tenure (never saw evidence of pastoral child abuse, think the stories are overblown, but it did happen in certain diocese)
The dark stuff I’ve seen is in human behavior. The church I went to in my formative years was a community church so a lot of people knew each other. Some people I saw in church were the biggest hypocrites and acted worse than secular people when outside church walls. This bothered me.
There is also a culture of deception and burying things in the church because of shame and forgiveness. The child abuse scandal is just one example. Like I mentioned the media has made it seem like it was widespread when it really wasn’t. Still it did happen by the Vatican’s own admission and investigation and priests were moved across the country. It was handled very poorly.
But the shame and burying things extends into families as well. Some Catholic families I’ve met have been highly dysfunctional, with rampant alcoholism, domestic abuse, and other negative things occurring. Like I said in another post, the methodology for spiritual cleansing has been lost and many Catholics act passive because they ‘have to carry the cross’ or some nonsense. I tell them that if they didn’t attempt to avoid the issue and solve the problem, the saying it’s my cross is stupid. That only applies when the suffering is outside of your control, not your own making.
My best experiences with Catholicism though have been with semi-enclosed religious orders like Benedictine monks and Benedictine sisters. These orders have rules regarding hospitality and you can visit and stay with them for free. Of course donations are always welcome. Some brothers are also ordained priests as well so you can go to confession there too. I found these types the most devout, hardworking, faithful, and down to earth. It may be selection bias because to live this sort of life you have to be serious. But I found speaking with them and living that life the most peaceful and it was far far superior to my other experiences as a Catholic.
An example was a few letters from a some Benedictine sisters that I have never met. I was planning on visiting the order but other obligations got in the way. You can still go as a man, but the process is more involved. You can’t just show up. The letters I received from them were some of the nicest and most hospitable I have ever received.
So like everything else it depends on the church, order, region, and people. Some churches are really bad and others good.
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