Forten-hundred-and-ninety-two? That seems to be a little while ago. Be it Sunni/Shia, Christian/Jew, or my own Irish forefathers, humans have an amazing ability to behave in a beastly fashion to one another.

We just went to the St. Paddy's day parade last weekend, and I had what I viewed as a teachable moment with my eight-year-old (she, needless to say, probably viewed it more as 'another boring Dad speech moment'). Anyway, the NorAid nitwits marched by full of their usual bombast and she wanted to know what they were shouting about. [These are the yahoos who think that funneling American money to the IRA will help the Catholics shoot the Unionists out of Ulster. Charming people.] I tried to explain this, and related it to the Iraqi mess as best I could. Takeaways, I told her: 1) people will do amazingly evil things and call it religious, 2) know what you think is right and follow that, regardless what anyone -- even a priest -- tells you.

Of course, she said 'Does that mean I don't have to listen to what you think and can wear make-up?'. Grumble.

She may not like it, however, there are things alot worse you could do. From the tone of your posts over the past year, Robert, you are not far from Holy Mother Church. It seems you are not wrestling with why, but when.

Pols, sometimes when I contemplate the fact that I'm dealing with daughters, I suspect that God has a sense of humor. When I think of YOU dealing with them, I know He does. Heh. Indeed.

Hi, Robbo. It's me, Mr. P. You know, "The man who accompanied Mrs. P to Patum Peperium." Take what I am about to say for whatever you think it is worth.

When I finally got sick of it all and followed the thread of history back, trying to answer the question, "How did the Episcopal Church get into this mess?" I found that that thread lead right through Henry VIII's bedroom and across the Tiber to Rome.

Of course, along the way that thread ran through some pretty nasty stuff--I mean besides Henry's bedroom--like the Albambra Decree. But after a while I noticed that in this case and in the case of say the Cathars in Southern France or the indescriminate killing of Jews on the way to the First Crusade it wasn't Holy Mother Church who has doing the head-knocking or rack-turning. It was the civil authorities like Ferdinand and Isabella--usually for reasons of state policy. In the case of the Cathars, as in the case of the infamous and misunderstood Spanish Inquisition, it was Holy Mother Church that intervened on behalf of those who were being persecuted.

In other words, as a Catholic you can make the vital distinction between Church and State--a distinction which is, for all the Enlightenment garbage that has been written about it in the past 250 years, actually a Catholic idea from those bad old Middle Ages.

Having embarassed myself on more than one occassion in my pre-Rome days when I was "standing up for the truth" in the Epsicopal Church I seldom meddle with other folks "walks"; but through Mrs. P I've been keeping an eye on yours and just thought I might be able to help. I hope I have. I pray you cross over and that you don't have to leave your wife on the other side. Being Catholic gives one such a wonderful feeling of going to church on Sunday rather than going to attend another round of The Fight. It also makes one feel as close as one possibly can to the Jews without actually being Jewish.

Robbo, the best thing to put the Spanish Inquisition and all of the events around it into perspective is a program done by the History Channel. It starts out with the Monty Python skit but then the narrator tells you that just about everything we know about the Inquisition is wrong and proceeds to explain why. It was incredibly informative. If interested the History Channel has it for sale at their site.

Robbo, on the subject of the Jews persecution, perhaps a part of it was atoned for by Church action during World War II. An elderly Polish archbishop, Adam (later Cardinal) Sapieha, defended Jews rounded up in Krakow, and later issued baptismal certificates to hide them from the Germans. Among his clandestine seminarians was a young Karol Wojtyla, late Pope John Paul II.

Come on over to the Church. Us Roman Catholics know how to party. Water into wine, baby. Water into wine!

That's about the extent of my Roman Catholic evangelizing.

I'm going to Hell.

Robbo,

The Catholic blogger Gerald Augustinius recently had pictures up of anti-semitic art that was to be found in Catholic and Lutheran churches in the 16th century (pretty unpleasant stuff). There is no question that Christians -- not only Catholics, by the way -- have harbored anti-Semitic members, priests, bishops, and even Popes. There is no question that this is a great evil, and has caused great suffering.

I think that no one will face a sterner judge than churchmen who promulgated such things. The Church must always move forward based on the stirrings of the human heart and conscience, and never attempt to use the weapons of the enemy, fear and hatred, to advance its cause. I like to think that if I lived in the Middle Ages, I would have harbored these same sentiments, but we are all creatures of our times and bound by how we are ourselves taught and what the common wisdom of the age is. It used to be that Easter week was feared by Jews for the pogroms that would be stirred up by the ignorant. I am thankful I do not live in such an age.

I think that no one can read Christ's gospels and take away the notion that we are to persecute each other -- I see nowhere in the Bible where Christ used anything stronger than admonitions to make his point, except for the incident where he drove the moneylenders from the temple -- his wrath is always stirred by the profaning of what is holy. I would fear to face him as Torquemada, for Torquemada did not deal in mercy, and can therefore expect none from the Lord.

Talk over your own path with your family, and pray. Though I am a Catholic and would love to have you in our faith with me, it may be that your path is a longer and slower one, shepherding others with you as you come. Or it may be that your example may move your wife and family to come to the church in their own time and way. I do not know your route, but I know who does. Pray to Him with humble heart, and you will not go wrong. He will not let you.