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I don't know. We've talked before. Whenever there is both, historically there has been trouble. I guess that's the only problem I have with it. Seeing all the trouble religion is causing on the planet in our time, it makes one step back and wonder why it has to be that way. And I don't have the answers.

This will probably get me in hot water, but I tend to think in terms of how I would react. I don't like over enthusiam about persons, no matter who or where they are. If a crowd got too enthusiastic about me, I would be embarassed because I know I am unworthy of their enthusiasm. I would try to direct their enthusiasm to God (or something bigger than me) and not to my person.

I guess in my tradition (protestant until I converted) religious enthusiasm was confined to churches and meeting places, not the streets. I know catholics like to gather in huge crowds and have walks, protests, whatever, but it just isn't something I'm all that comfortable with. To be honest, sometimes I feel threatened with all that show of religious power, like they would take over if they got the chance and force their beliefs on everyone like they tried to do in the past.

I've got an email from someone who wants to establish a catholic country to show the world and try to convert them all to catholicism. We had catholic countries before and they weren't all that great for everyone.

There's a real dichotomy in my soul about these things. I think I've lost my cultural roots. They are so mixed. I don't have that strong sense of culture that catholics seem to have. Some of their cultural transcend nationalism, but some doesn't. All the strange cultural interpretations of Christianity kind of turn me off, to be truthful. So many fables have gotten mixed into the Christian religion and my mind goes on overdrive trying to retain what seems valid and trying to block out what seems exaggerated or false. I got into trouble with a prayer group over the Infant of Atocha. That is so alien to anything I'm used to and the devotion wasn't approved by the church. That was a real hangup. Everything had to be approved by the church. Then things cropped up that seemed to be approved by the church which began to cause difficulty. Thus began my downward spiral into rebellion against all that is nonessential to the faith. My soul was getting too cluttered with it all and I got stuck about where to turn.