Yes, my association with the catholic church ist also mostly about guilt and fear. Scaring people to make them do the right thing.

In general the church was the dark symbol of fear. Have you ever been to the vatican? The same in big. Everything there is big, with the intention of making you small and fear them. At least that was my impression. Other people I was with had different experience

The catholic religion in itself is also a lot about loving and doing the right thing out of love and wanting to help for the sake of it. But yes, for me it mostly comes down to doing good things out of the fear of bad things happening to you.

"and saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video. He asked if anyone had called 911, and no one had."

And wow, I have to say I cannot imagine this happening here in germany. Except maybe for some very dark areas on a bad time of the day.