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I was raised in the Episcopal Church, which is oft referred as "Catholic Lite". much o9f the liturgy and dogma came from the Catholic religion, but left out the Pope part. After all, the King wanted a divorce.

But, I found that God doesn't dwell in religions. He is a Spirit, and we must find the way to Him through our faith in His power and trust in His ways. He has given us the Truth in the way of Scripture, and when I see the way the Roman Catholics have bastardized it, by adding all of the Mariology and Saintology, it gets too far away from the Truth as exposed in the Word.

Look first at the book of Romans, which exposes most of what we see in the Roman Cultic practices. Paul goes into great depth and you will be enlightened if you will jut allow His Spirit to guide you.

We are saved by Grace, not by works. The Roman Catholic way is to work things out, and if you fail here, your friend and relatives can pray you out of their "purgatory". If you die in sin, you will die for eternity. But, God forgives and gives us eternal life. That means it never ends. It cannot be taken away if you leave that group, no matter how much they pressure and cajol. A you will see on this thread, many will tell you that if you leave the group, that you will lose any chance at eternal life with the Father. Not true. Study the Word, and pray for the guidance of His Holy Spirit. He promises that it will come...

Galatians 3: 23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

I won't debate you on doctrinal differences but I will disagree with one of your points. Canons 846-848 and 851 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1997 sees the Church as much broader than you suspect. I concede that many statements of early and Reformation era Roman Catholic leaders would have it that formal membership in the Roman Catholic Church is necessary for salvation. That does not seem to be the current belief and I do not share such a belief that non-Catholics are excluded from heaven.

One problem is the idea of God as the Eternal and merciless accountant in the sky, engaged in a never-ending game of gotcha looking for excuses to send people to hell. That's not my idea of God and I would bet it is not yours either.

My belief as to God is that there is one and only one God, manifested in three Persons: the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, that He always was, always will be and always remains the same, that He is omniscient, omnipresent, all good, just and merciful and that He was born into this world through Mary who obeyed God and accepted voluntarily her role as the mother of Jesus Christ in response to God's request conveyed by the Archangel Gabriel at the annunciation. It was necessary for the salvation of any human that Jesus Christ be born into this world, live, engage in public ministry, suffer under the Roman governor Pontius Plate, and be put to death in atonement for human sins. No human can earn or merit his/her own salvation and only a Divine sacrifice could atone for human sins against the will of the Creator of humanity.

I do, as a Catholic, disagree with a lot of what you posted but I do not allow myself the luxury of arguing theology with my Reformed brothers and sisters in Christ. I am too busy being impressed by the saintly adherence of so many of them to the God that I worship and His standards. I have had the privilege of representing many of them as an attorney in pro-life causes like abortion mill "rescues" and representing each according to his or her own beliefs rather than my own (if we differed in any respect).

Pray for me as I pray for you.

God bless you and yours, now and forever!

WVK, I have to give you credit for some originality. I've known a lot of ex-Catholics who thought they knew all about Catholicism, but you're the first ex-Episcopalian who thinks they know all about it. Let me let you in on a little secret: the Episcopalian church has some nice external accoutrements they borrowed from Catholicism, but that's all it is. The internals of the religion are utterly Protestant. "Dogma"? Do Episcopalians even use that word?

My wife was Episcopalian before she converted, and my in-laws still are. I would not claim to know everything about the religion, but I know enough to know it's very different from mine once you get past the externals.

The Roman Catholic way is to work things out, and if you fail here, your friend and relatives can pray you out of their "purgatory".

Wrong. Completely wrong. If you fail here, you go to hell, you don't even get to purgatory.

However, Scripture says that nothing unclean can enter heaven (Rev 21:27), so if you die in God's friendship but with the damage sin does still on your soul, God graciously makes it possible for that damage to be repaired after death.