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We Latins have been more Protestantized - to our diminishment and, frankly, shame. And it is a shame. We are looking to the Orthodox more to reclaim our history and our culture.

Our numbers? Sure, we’ve got a majority of God-fearing good people, but we’ve also got the likes of Pelosi, Biden, the Kennedy whelps, Daschle, Durbin, Kucinich et al.

I am just barely old enough to remember the Ontario blue laws which forebade most stuff on Sundays. It made certain things inconvenient, but overall, it helped strengthen family, and religious, life.

When the mutual excommunications were removed and "committed to oblivion" in 1964 at the Vatican II, there was a real chance for us to approach each other with the authoirty of a Council and begin work on re-union. It was precisely the protestantization that followed the Vatican II that immeditely put such effors to a standstill.

The Catholic Church went in the opposite direction, removing the tradition rather than strengthening patristic ties. We Ortodox watched in horror as chalices turned from gold to glass, and Catholic churches began to look like Protestant prayer barns, and the pre-sanctified Gifts in some instances became grapefruit juice, even coffee, and hosts turned into chocolate chip cookies.

But, thank God, the Church is resiliant and bounced back after only 40 or so years! :) In church time, that is a heartbeat...

Pelosi, Biden, the Kennedy whelps, Daschle, Durbin, Kucinich—and John Kerry and Rudy Guliani to add to the list, are the product of those post-Vatican II years of fall. They grew up in that Church, which frighteningly resembled the Episcopal churches, where you could do just about anything and still call yourself a "Catholic."

Blue laws were reminders that this is not our world but God's world, the way the tree in the Garden reminded Adam and Eve that their freedom is limited and that man must choose between Good or evil, bearing the consequences of that choice: God, who is life, or sin which is death.

No one ever said the world was created entirely for our comfort 24/7/365. While we matter as individulas, it's everyone's world and our freedom ends where the other person s freedom begins.

Narcissism is the work of the devil, as each individual puts himself above others and makes himself a "god." We call that "freedom." Freedom is to be free from fear and free from hungar and free from violence and hate, etc. It is not freedom to sin.

But if you believe your sins are "paid for," and your salvation is "guranteed," becoming a narcissist is easy, almost "natural."

So, we have dismanteled all the inconvenient obstacles, incuding the blue laws, lest God get in the way of our "freedom."