I didn't take the remark to be sinister, in fact, the opposite. I meant to say thanks in fact.
That little boy was born to me when I was 41, after I was told I would never be able to have any more children. (I have a 15 year old.) So I am delighted for anyone to see that little miracle. :-)
I enjoy discussing these topics and I hope we can all continue to discuss them.
GBCDOJ: At #84, you prove once again to be the closest that FR will ever see to the computer savvy Living Magisterium of Holy Mother the Church. Thanks for everything you do here to engage in modest and respectful and knowledgeable apologetics.
Maine-iac7: When you get to know me, I bet you will find that though I can be somewhat sarcastic and colorful in combat, I am not such a bad guy. I am certainly willing to believe that you are likewise. If you know any reformed Christian who was arrested at a Connecticut abortion mill between about 1975 and 1992 or so and ask about the Catholic attorney who represented most pro-life criminal arrestees (the humble local one and not the civil case attorney who has operated nationally with distinction), I bet they will confirm that I am not so bad. I took the difficult road of representing each pro-life arrestee according to his or her own religious beliefs and according to his or her own wishes as an individual defendant. It was the best compensation I ever had as an attorney: little money but the cherished opportunity to thank God for His love and to use my status as an attorney by being a servant of people of varying faiths who had demonstrated their love of God in their daily lives and were threatened with punishment for their virtues rather than for their sins. On Saturday, I was getting mad at you. I am glad that I uncharacteristically shut up for two days so that others, including you, could talk. Your response agreeing that we have to fight our political wars as allies is good enough for me to recognize your substantial worth in service to Jesus Christ, my Savior and yours.
Everyone: We all need to work together. We are fallen. We are sinners. It is all too easy to allow our respective levels of pride to clash and give rise to rancor and and anger and enmity, all to the delight of our mutual enemies who serve our ancient enemy below, knowingly or otherwise. Someday we may have earned the right to disagree with one another in public on matters of faith but that day is yet to come when we have witnessed in the lifetimes of most of us 50+ million slaughtered innocents among other outrages. Except by sins of omission, neither Roman Catholicism nor reformed Christianity, as such, killed any of them. We need to work together to end this Holocaust.
Also bear with my less scholarly (than GBCDOJ's) method of describing my Catholic reaction to the OSAS doctrine of Evangelicals. I have been a believing (though certainly not perfectly practicing) Catholic for more decades than I like to recall. I grew up serving the Tridentine Mass as an altar boy. I have the grace of never having doubted any actual dogma of Catholicism. I am not about to start now. I know that many of our reformed brothers and sisters are just as firm in their faith as I am in mine. I respect that and recognize that it is a BIG part of what makes them valuable allies in our social issue civil war. The best Christian I ever hope to know was my mother's old-fashioned Methodist best friend Hilda. I would say that Hilda believed in the flag, the Bible and no darned taxes but her belief in the Bible trumped everything else and she lived it every day of her very long life.
Here's the story I want to tell. In the winter of 1971-1972, I was working for a Republican campaign in the presidential primary (John Ashbrook). I had to file some nominating papers at the office of the New Hampshire Secretary of State. As I arrived, so did Senator Edmund Sixtus Muskie (Polish Catholic of Maine whatever his politics). I stopped on the sidewalk out of respect for his office (though not for his politics) to allow him to precede me. There were three reasonably clean cut and very wholesome looking young people sitting on the Capitol steps, a young man with clean long hair clad in a buckskin jacket and two nice young women. As Muskie approached, the trio stood up and it occurred to me that it might be possible that they posed a threat to the senator despite their wholesome appearance. Nothing of the sort. The young man confronted the senator demanding to know either whether he had been saved or whether he was born again. The terms were unfamiliar to me and to Muskie who responded by bumbling utterances. Did Muskie accept Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. Now Muskie was genuinely confused as to why he was being asked such questions and whether he was being tricked in some way. (Mentally, I responded by saying to myself: Of course, Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior. No One else could be. He died on the cross for my sins. No One else could. A sin against God cannot very well be satisfied by an act of any mere human person.) The three young Christians made Muskie look very very foolish, very ignorant, very superficial and very worldly and very much the sort of Democrat so common today who has not a clue as to the meaning of God in the lives of conservative Americans and many others. The incident caused me to at least listen with respect to the faith statements of fervent Christian people whose theology on many matters makes no sense to this Catholic.
Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane over the fact that His flock would not be one. Let each of us do a small part to lessen His tears.