[Diamond]

If you believe differently, that is nice and imaginative but your belief will not affect my own. If you want to instruct me on what I ought to believe, get back to me right after you are elected pope and not until. Take those hands off my lapels and mind your own bidness, cordially or otherwise..

It's ok then for you to instruct us in theology (#203, #290) but it's not ok for anyone to dare question any of your theological dicta. Ok. Got it.

And btw, in light of your use of the word "bargain", and your ad hominem invective notwithstanding, my reading comprehension is just fine, thank you very much.

bar·gain

• An agreement between parties fixing obligations that each promises to carry out.
• 1. An agreement establishing the terms of a sale or exchange of goods or services: finally reached a bargain with the antique dealer over the lamp.
  2. Property acquired or services rendered as a result of such an agreement.
• Something offered or acquired at a price advantageous to the buyer.< bar·gained, bar·gain·ing, bar·gains
  
  1. To negotiate the terms of an agreement, as to sell or exchange.
  2. To engage in collective bargaining.
  3. To arrive at an agreement.
  bargained my watch for a meal.
  Phrasal Verb(s):
  bargain for/on
  To count on; expect: "I never bargained for this tearing feeling inside me" (Anne Tyler).
  
  Idiom(s):
  into/in the bargain
  Over and above what is expected; in addition.
  [Middle English, from Old French bargaigne, haggling, from bargaignier, to haggle, of Germanic origin; see bhergh-¹ in Indo-European roots.]<bar'gain·er n.
  

  Synonyms: These nouns denote an agreement arrived at after a discussion in which the parties involved promise to honor their respective obligations: kept my end of the bargain and mowed the lawn; made a compact to correspond regularly; a legally binding contract to install new windows; a covenant for mutual defense; ignored the requests that weren't part of the deal.

Cordially,

[BlackElk]

You have been elected pope???? I thought B-XVI was still alive and serving.

#203 and #293 are Catholic comments by a Catholic on a Catholic matter. Yoiu have every right to make non-Catholic observations and Catholics have every right (and probably the obligation) to ignore the braying of the wild beasts in the wilderness. If you are not Catholic, you will not understand the confidence we have in our Church as the one established and guaranteed by Christ Himself.

Your failure to grasp that is your problem and I don't intend to allow you to succeed in making your failures my concern. This is America. You are free to believe anything, however fanciful, that you wish to believe. You can be a Zoroastrian or a member of a cult worshiping the moondoggies of Jupiter for all I care or this nation cares. I can be a Roman Catholic and so can you though one suspects that you have rejected that possibility.

Ted Kennedy was baptized and confirmed as a Roman Catholic. He betrayed his freely chosen commitments to God. You may argue that his commitments were made for him by his godparents at his infant baptism but his commitments (and the renewal of his baptismal promises) were freely entered into by him at his Confirmation in the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist when he was well above he age of reason. God made good on His part of that bargain. Teddy did not, at least by all public appearances, keep his part of the bargain.

That you cannot or will not fathom the fine points of Catholic theology comes as no surprise. That a Bible and a few reading lessons qualifies you as having authority on matters Roman Catholic is laughable. Mind your own bidness. I'll refrain from telling how to be whatever you may be (none of my bidness) and I will thank you to leave at least this Catholic alone (none of your bidness).

You can question whatever you please and I can ignore or despise your questions as I please and I will. I have no desire to engage in theological back and forth with non-Catholics on a conservative POLITICAL website which should attempt to unite conservatives politically rather than encourage division across denominational lines.

I used to fight with the "reformed" here but what is the point? I now limit my religious arguments here to those who pose as Catholic and are not and those who openly attack Catholicism.

I see no merit in an argument over semantics either. Since you do not understand Catholicism, you do not understand the use of the word bargain as in Teddy's failure to meet his obligations under same. If you fail to understand, that will be your problem.