Methodism is quite close to the Catholicism from whence it came, but this is one of the reasons they left to form their own church to begin with, and it will not sit well for very long.
The Methodist churches were not an offshoot of the RC church, but rather of the Church of England, quite a few years (I'm thinking a century, but my dates on that are fuzzy) after the CoE succeeded from the CoR.
Still, this is bizzarre, and I hope somebody in the Methodist Church is looking into it.
Yes, I understand all that, but I was referencing more the roots of all of of it in the catholic church on this side of church evolution.
Personally, I am more of a Deist, and I do not accept the teachings of just one religion. I look for knowledge in all of them, or more specifically, I may reject some or all of some of them.
I suppose I am a bit weird regarding my allegiances, or lack of them.
I thought perhaps it was not a good thing and tried like heck to find a religion I was comfortable with, but to no avail.
I think they all have good and bad, and I think they all have something positive to give to their membership and the community.
I suppose that gives me a different perspective of differences between them and it is unaffected by and past history.
My Grandparents were Orthodox Roman Catholics, My Mother was a Southern Baptist, my father a excommunicated Catholic and I was raised Methodist. :-)
The Methodists formed their first conference in 1744, but it did not have governing power until after the death of John Wesley in 1791.
I learned a lot about the Methodist church in self-defense. I was born and raised Episcopalian, and the sweet little old ladies in my grandfather-in-law's congregation kept asking me when I was going to convert. So I used to respond (very politely) that John and Charles Wesley lived and died Episcopalians, so I hoped I could too.
Didn't work out that way. My husband and I are now Catholic, after the ECUSA apparently went stark raving mad.
But this of course is long after the Reverend went to his heavenly reward.