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I don’t know. Her sister goes to mass every day and her parents are so Catholic that we were barely able to get them into our church for our wedding (we were both 44 at the time - to give you some “age” perspective).

There is so much ritual and recital and “not” bible reading that I’m not sure what the average Catholic’s perspective on all of it is. I do know that it is a common dilemma to have people recite a thing from childhood and never really understand the actual deep meaning of what they are saying. And when they do figure it out, they dump it.

I was in my late-twenties when I discovered that a phrase I always used, “Jewed the guy down”, had the word “Jew” in it. At that point I discovered the phrases roots and stopped saying it.

I think that sort of thing may have been going on with my wife.

I will say this: As a woman herself, my wife believes that the idea that Mary died a virgin is preposterous, unless she had some sort of mental or physical defect.

I just looked up the Confiteor. I could see how someone would brush by the phrase “ever virgin” and just assume it means she was a virgin when Jesus was born. If they really thought hard about it they might ask someone about the “odd” wording and only then discover that it REALLY DID mean what it seems to say.

That is one of the problems with language: Often we brush aside the literal interpretation of a phrase and replace it with what we think the writer meant. We all do it when someone says “I could care less”. We just assume the really meant to say “I couldn’t care less”.

Language, and it’s usage and interpretation, is a fascinating subject.