Go figure.

It’s powerful stuff, and I understand ‘their’ conviction. As I as also understand why my mom and dad used birth control…as devote Catholics.

Go figure.

I guess the message is, they’re not all stupid.

I pray it stays that way. And I pray it gets better…

But I don’t know that it’s really possible for a non-Catholic watching American discussions of “how religion works” to really understand being Catholic.

Because it really isn’t so much about the teachings as such as it is about the lived experience, and quite honestly, the lived experience doesn’t have a lot to do with condemnations of homosexuality or birth control or whatever else the hierarchy is blathering on about.

The media covers Rome and whatever the local Archbishop has to say so much that it’s nearly impossible for a non-Catholic to understand how little most of any of that matters to a butt-in-the-pew Catholic. Most of them couldn’t tell you the name of their Bishop, much less what the latest encyclical had to say about anything.

And most American’s pictures of church services involve a little music and then a pastor ranting on and on about some Bibilcal selection, where the Catholic Mass is a set ritual that repeats on a fixed schedule – the individual priest has no say in what this weeks Bible readings are, and the sermon is usually a short talk loosely based on those readings rather than a political diatribe from the pulpit.

It may not be the same today – it’s been well over a decade and a half since I got pitched out when I came out, but in nearly 35 years of weekly Mass attendance, I never once heard homosexuality even mentioned from the pulpit, much less condemned. Nor birth control, for that matter. A lot of talking up of family and children and so on, but none of the hellfire and brimstone people talk about. I won’t pretend I wasn’t crystal clear that the Church flat-out condemned me, but that wasn’t a feature or daily or weekly Mass.

And of course, most Catholics are not blind to the high percentage of flaming queens they have in the priesthood – most of whom are hardworking and decent, and never touched a child in their lives, no matter what they get up to with each other at the rectory.

And, science has shown that the more kids you have, the more likely they will be gay – and the Church is still encouraging Catholics to have large families – resulting in a documented higher percentage of gay people in their immediate families – the single biggest indicator of pro-gay sentiment. When it comes to a choice between their own family member and some shriveled and bitter old guy ranting about gays, they’ll side with their own family more and more. Especially now that being gay is not an automatic guarantee your parents won’t get grandkids out of you.

Those of Spanish Jewish descent might suggest that you don’t have to go all the way back to Charlemagne. Depending on the tribe and the priest, some California Indian tribes might nod in agreement as well.

It is, of course, some better… and I choose to believe that this is because of developed morality rather than the Church’s loss of power… but I don’t want to inspect that assumption too closely.

Joel, you appear to be setting a standard of conformity that we don’t use for pretty much anything. Political parties, national attitudes, sporting team support, school affiliation, these all have people (some prominent within the organization) that dissent on some issues that others think are integral. But still you can be a Republican that supports marriage equality, a Dodger fan that actually likes the McCourts, or an Amish woman with a love of color. Few intelligent people are 100% in conformity with the stated positions of most groups.

And religion is a matter of pondering, a matter of wondering, and Catholicism is steeped in research, thought, and quibbling. With a church that large, its no surprise that most Catholics differ with the Vatican on some thing or other.

Yes, I knew that.

Hunter said “I never said I recognized that as moral.”.

I didn’t mean to imply that you did.

As for the threat of eternal hellfire, the basic mechanism of Christianity is the threat of punishment, stemming from the foundational idea that people are by nature evil. Hierarchies work on fear — that’s the only way they can maintain their authority, and Christianity is all about authority.

I never said I recognized that as moral.

Unlike being of X nationality which undoubtedly at least means you were either born there or are a citizen, being a catholic really means nothing in and of itself.

Sure we can define things arbitrarily, but when census like these come about, a catholic really just means that people who believe in -whatever-(for a precise definition) where questioned, in which the only conclusion one can make is anything or, more neutrally, nothing.

What about the morality of threatening people with eternal torture if they don’t believe in you? That is much more immoral.

I think that in general, it’s a case of the belief being in the basic tenets of the faith, not in the institution. I think that holds true for many Protestants as well — perhaps even more so, since one of the foundational concepts of Protestantism is that everyone has a direct link to God and has no need of a priesthood.

So the survey results from Catholics don’t really surprise me all that much. I tend to doubt that most Catholics believe that condemnation of homosexuality is central to their faith.

As for the morality of forcing people to live by a creed you can’t convince them to accept, it’s already quite clear that the Church’s concept of morality is, at best, rudimentary, and mostly concerned with covering its own butt. (And do remember that Charlemagne gave the Saxons a choice: convert or die. The Church hasn’t changed all that much in the last 1200 years.)