Posted on 03/21/2008 1:47:24 PM PDT by Grig
Interesting. After looking at the map a second time, I realized there are TWO different blues. The blue that covers a large portion of the map is catholic. The reform blue is a very small percentage.
Ping to read & respond later
True and false. For the purposes of surveying affiliations, it would be absurd to do so, -- they have to go by mass attendance, or church registries, or self-identification.
Theologically speaking, the Catholic Creed says in part "we believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins". This means that not only those baptized in the Catholic Church, but all validly baptized -- Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc -- are Catholics at the time of their baptism. When those people convert to Catholicism, they are not re-baptized. Of course, unless they go on practicing the Catholic faith, they fall off. No one, however would base a census on this.
As regards the Catholics, the map is misleading is a different way. They should have differentiated the Catholics by frequency of mass attendance -- the requirement is to attend Mass each Sunday, and by lifestyle -- contraception, advocacy of decriminalized abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia, remarriage, cohabitation without marriage in the Church are all behaviors that separate one from the Catholic Church whether they count themselves as Catholics or not. Should they surveyed on that basis, they would find very few Catholics anywhere, sadly.
Ping for later reading/reference
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