Conservative Catholics who call liberals "cafeteria Catholics" will be picking up their trays and lining up for that delicious cafeteria goodness, for they are going to ignore the living snot out of a papal encyclical that's critical of capitalism.

"Having lived in both Georgia and South Carolina, I can tell you firsthand, Christian evangelicals don't like the Catholic Church, and don't consider its followers to be Christians. To me, that's an unbelievably presumptuous attitude."

Yet, it's music to this R.C.'s ears. I'd prefer not to be associated with those lunatics and really hate when people equate the two.

Then again, I was raised by Catholics who believed abortion was a sin but that women had the right to choose. Crazy, huh? Much has changed since the 70s, it seems.

Nagapie - we left-leaning R.C.'s are out here, at least in the Northeast. I'm a born-and-bred Democrat and feminist and, as somebody pointed out earlier, believe that the Church does more good than harm, on balance. I was married in the Church, have had all of my children baptized, and attend Mass. I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's an enormous institution and I believe its global stances don't necessarily jibe with local parishes. And, say what you will, the Church has absolutely always given a shit about poor people, which is more than I can say about a lot of other religions.

To me, that's an unbelievably presumptuous attitude."

July 2007: "The Vatican issued a document Tuesday restating its belief that the Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ."

Well, then the Catholic Church has a very presumptuous attitide...

I tend to be very hard on the Catholic Church as a born Catholic, now ex, but I am very proud of the social justice aspect of the church, of which I have been both beneficiary and contributor. How many Catholic hospitals are there in the United States? Most of them are quite old > 80 years old.

Well, I just looked it up:

615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community hospitals in the United States. That is staggering. I got it from the following lovely chest beating Catholic site:

http://www.usccb.org/comm/cip.shtml

The church infuriates me in many ways, but it also does a whole lot of good. More good than bad.

"Based on?"

"The Church's actions, not its words."

"Namely?"

"It's having sided with the military junta that just overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras, someone who's been pushing a progressive agenda which included raising the minimum wage and increased spending for health care and education."

"Anything else?"

"The Church's track record of backing right wing tyrants against popular uprisings."

"Why would the Pope put out an anti-capitalist message if he didn't mean it?"

"An anti-capitalist message at a time of a deep global recession very well could be aimed at undercutting any attempt at resurrecting liberation theology, the Church's big bugaboo from the eighties."

"How can one tell whether the Pope means what he says?"

"As living conditions for most of us earthdwellers become steadily worse, and populism takes hold in more and more places, on whose side the Pope, the populists or the powers that be?"

"In the meantime?"

"Same as before, he's not to be trusted."

as opposed to its older one?

c'mon

What a crock of sh$#. Little irritates me more than this tired piece of sophist tapdancing. The bible was taken literally for almost all of history; The RC is founded in the principle that the pope is infallible, it's only now that science has turned over so many rocks to find no evidence of god, and that society has advanced so far that even more of the bible has become socially and morally and philosophically repugnant that we choose to ignore most of it.

Ratzinger would abolish San Francisco in its entirety if he could. You guys at Salon, you seem to have no common sense at all sometimes. This is not a guy who likes you and there's no reason for you to like him.

The only thing I can tell you is that my ex-husband is a very liberal, very ex Catholic. His original reasons for leaving the church as a teen were mundane: go to church, or watch the Giants on Sunday. He chose the Giants as soon as his parents allowed him to choose. But he was still a Catholic, and as he grew into adulthood, he began to question the church's teachings, (I hasten to add he would have questioned any church's teachings at that point). He does not attend any church services and hasn't for years, although he still believes in Jesus, and he still prays.

It's interesting, I think, that the most vicious anti-Catholic diatribes I've heard personally have come from ex-Catholics. Most people I know wouldn't criticize somebody else's religion, or the religion they were brought up in. But get an ex-whatever in the room, and there can be fireworks.

As a reminder, the Christian Right does not consider Catholics to be Christians. They really, really don't. Fundamentalist Web sites often have sections devoted to teaching how to convert non-Christians, and there's always a prominent section about Catholics. If you read these sites, you'll notice a particular disdain for Catholics, even moreso than for Jews.

Having lived in both Georgia and South Carolina, I can tell you firsthand, Christian evangelicals don't like the Catholic Church, and don't consider its followers to be Christians. To me, that's an unbelievably presumptuous attitude. I would think that any religion that follows Jesus to be Christian. Not to the evangelicals.

I'll say one more thing: my problem with religion is really a problem with the fundamentalists of all religions. And I have a big problem with any of them. All of them.

"as far as Jesus is concerned, he was a communist, no doubt."

I didn't know that Jesus has been a follower of the doctrines of Karl Marx, who lived nineteen centuries afterwards.

I agree with Chris Hedges (author of "American fascists"): "Our return to an image-based culture means the destruction of the abstract thought made possible by a literate, print-based society. Image-based societies do not grasp or cope with ambiguity, nuance and doubt".

So Jesus was a communist, the Church is not social because we disagree with its current gay policy and all Jesus followers ended up as beggers. And the Mona Lisa married Tarzan and their son was George W. Bush.

No need to read or study. No need to say: this is right but this is wrong. Nuances are forbidden. Everything is reduced to the mentality of a four year old, like in Opprah. Sign of our times.