Bree wrote: I feel I must defend the CHURCH. The Catholic church is like any other club..organization.. in that that have tenets..rules to follow. When you join anything one usually agrees with the rules..if not, get out. The Catholic church on morals and faith will not change with the whims of man.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, Bree. In my lifetime, the church has changed its stance on some rules that I was told were vitally important when I was young. These may seem trivial, but as people followed them less and less, the church changed its mind about their importance and pretty much abandoned them altogether: - women wearing a hat in church (nobody does that anymore. I had to put a &*#$@ kleenex on my head once to enter a Catholic church as a kid!) - not eating meat on Friday (enter McDonalds and that went out the window) - nuns wearing the traditional "habit" (sorry, a burqa by any other name... now nuns wear suits or something) - fasting from 12:00 to 3:00 on Good Friday (everyone's at work; who fasts?) -having to go to confession to receive communion (I'm not so sure anyone goes to confession anymore...) - quickly bowing one's head when saying the name "Jesus" - genuflecting (quickly kneeling on one knee) before entering the pew of the church or when passing in front of the altar (although my brother and sisters and I all remembered to do this long forgotten gesture at my father's funeral when we went up onto the alter to do the readings, which impressed my mother and various assorted relatives!) I know these can be seen as mostly ceremony. Yet, I think it illustrates that churches/religions do change with the times. Thanks for listening. lots of love Anne
