Stacey, I was thinking the same thing. It must have been terribly difficult to live in Tudor England. It sounds like you never knew how you were supposed to worship without going to the gallows.

I was raised a Catholic and I do not share this opinion. This proclomation being made by the Pope himself is a huge reason that I am choosing not to raise my children in the Catholic Church. Hope no one gets mad at me for saying that.

I am Catholic (born, raised and practicing) and I'm embarassed by this 'proclamation'. Having said that there are other Christian churches that I have encountered in my life who believe that everyone but them is going to h*ll. I have always thought of the Catholic church as being one of the more 'accepting'/'understanding' churches without an air of exclusivity. This has always been my experience and I know there are probably others who experienced otherwise. The pope's statement has no bearing on my Catholic faith or how I raise my children in the faith.

The irony of life. When I was in high school, my boyfriend was from an evangelical church and he informed me (along with most of his fellow churchgoers) that I would go to hell because I was Catholic, and Catholics aren't actually Christian.

Hm. Then I learned that *most* (really? not sure) Protestants believe that Catholics aren't Christian. This was when I started to question the intelligence of people attending these churches who ascribe to such embarrassing reasoning.

I stuck with the catholic church because I felt it was more accepting and tolerant than the protestant churches I visited and learned about. I attended a Presbyterian university and that was fantastic - perhaps they are also very accepting and tolerant and I'm sure I'd be happy as a member of that community as well.

Ah, but the irony of the pope undoing all my good faith in my own church. oh well. Some bad PR for the catholics, but it doesn't really affect my personal beliefs anyway.

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~ mama abroad

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Hmmm. I haven't been impressed by this pope so far and he's not making it easy.

However, I'm a cafeteria Catholic anyway, so while this upset me at first, I stopped and thought, "I pick and choose what I believe anyway, why should this make any difference?"

The only church I really related to was the Anglican Church of Canada which also has it's own share of problems lately. However, since I'm bound for Canada next week, I can take part in my once-yearly feeling of acceptance from a Church.

And then I'll go back to picking an choosing from a rather limited menu again.

mama-abroad - I've seen/heard that time and again about how many other xtian faiths do not consider catholics to be xtian. A good friend of mine is a very stong catholic (her brother is a priest) and she's told me many stories of discrimination against catholics since she's moved to a dutch-reform area. Makes no sense to me because all the other christian churches came after the catholic church, splintering off from other branches of the same tree, so to speak.

My first thought was of the Creed that we say at every Mass...."we acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins..."

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