[A Navy Vet]

The couple times I attended a Catholic church in my adult life, I was amazed at the ridiculous pomp and circumstance. Rise, sit, rise, sit, rise, sit. And then there are the costumes the Catholic leaders wear that doesn't compute with the simple clothing Christ wore at the time.

I've always believed Christ to be a simple and extraordinarly gifted spiritual man who would be dismayed how his teachings were so perverted to build a powerful and obscenely rich theocracy.

I still don't get why a Pope has a direct line to God. He's voted in by a bunch of fallible humans called Cardinals. It's a human popularity and political contest.

That said: I live my life according Judeo/Christian ethics. However, I don't need flowing robes and big hats and arcane rituals to tell me what my heart already knows. It's called empathy, sympathy, and compassion. If God gave them to me, then I thank him. I want to believe.

[GreyFriar]

As an Army Vet, I find ‘ridiculous pomp and circumstance’ as something that the military has a lot of. Within my protestant congregation, we do not have the level of a Catholic Mass, but we do have our own bit of pomp and circumstance. And from my studies, the Catholic Mass has similarities to the Jewish Synagogue worship services that our Christian faith originated in. Thus a carrying on of tradition.