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I guess I'll leave to the risen Lord the question of why how terribly wrong I am is so important to some people. Some put their faith in horses, some in chariots, and some even put their faith in Sola Scriptura. But we will trust in the risen Lord, who is our help and our shield.

I agree whole heartedly...But you are missing my position or are just ignoring it...

You may trust in the risen Lord but you know as well as I do that your church makes the claim to trust in your church...I've seen it stated so many times that it's impossible to ignore...

Sometimes your Protestant upbringing shines thru...

Actually, when it comes to missing positions, I think that my question was missed. I was asking about the motivation for attacking Catholics while misstating what we believe or insisting that we believe what we don't believe (or at least don't THINK we believe).

It's more than a flies -- honey v. vinegar question. As a rule I am not motivated to "recruit" or "correct" Protestants, unless they ask me something or say something about what I believe or do. And I'm certainly not motivated to persist in repeatedly painting all Protestantism with one broad brush.

Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. who teaches history at UVA even says Calvin is his favorite Protestant theologian, and I hope to have time, this summer to chat with him about Calvin. I don't expect that we will work ourselves into a dither about how dreadfully wrong he is.

As to my Protestant upbringing shining through, I think I get what you're saying, but I think to oppose it to the Church is silly. I was sharing with a convert who was received and confirmed at this year's Vigil how, for me, being Catholic has freed me more that I imagined to enjoy ever more deeply my relationship with Jesus and to trust in Him ever more fully. In my daily prayers, and Masses and Rosaries when time permits, I don't think about "merit" or "indulgences" or things of that kind. When I suggested to my chapter of Lay Dominicans that we try a new way of praying the Rosary, I did point out that St. Richard de Montfort writes that doing it that way produces some indulgence or other, but it was strictly for laughs, and laughs were what I got.

I sometimes get the impression that Protestants think of us as hag-ridden with guilt and exhausted with innumerable devotions, pieties, candles, and all that. I DO sometimes buy a candle and light it in front of our big ol' fiberglass (okay, resin, really) statchoo of the Theotokos, but I do it because it's pretty, and I, old and no longer lovely, like to do a pretty thing now and again.

The Lord may have be in derision, but He graciously shares the joke and permits me to join Him in the laughter.