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I am going to post here one more time. Not for you sinkspur, who understand the matter. Or for the other very kind freepers who have freepmailed me.

I will re-state the facts one more time and then leave this ugly thread. As an explanation, I have gone back to re-read every word I have posted on this thread. I have mis-typed 7 instead of 8 which is a typo I am even now correcting as I type. I don't claim to be a worldclass typist.

When I was 8, JFK was killed. I returned home to find my father leaving the house and the family. Within one week, Father John came to the house and told my mother she could no longer receive the sacrament.

She stopped going to the Catholic Church and instead we became Episcopaleans. When I was 13 she married a man whose father and whose brother were Episcopal priests. We are relatively happy in our church although I miss the Catholic church still and occasionally attend.

St. Mary's church has frequently run "Come Back Home" sort of reunions for divorced families, trying to get them to come back to the church.

That some churches did not permit abandoned, separated or divorced men and women to attend church is beyond dispute. Any priest you ask will tell you this was true, provided he is over 50 years old and remembers the bad ole days.

Did all priests do this? No. Some turned a blind eye. Our did not. An article I read recently, from the Church, said that there had been much misinformation about this matter through the years. Some priests have misinterpretted the churches position on this matter AND the article said that most people did not understand the policy BEYOND that which their priest told them.

For those freepers who think I am lying, I have been around here long enough that those who know me know this is not the case.

If you have an agenda that gives you a kick to call me a liar, go for it. You have my sympathy. You do not do your faith any credit. But go for it. Then go to confession and admit you have acted like a bully and have been cruel.

I'm questioning the details of Peach's story of how Peach, her mother and her infant siblings were subject to "automatic excommunication" by a priest in the 60s one week after Peach's dad walked out, a story that did not make sense when first related to the forum and that, when subject to additional questions, still does not make sense. Peach is the one who used her story as a predicate to attack the moral authority of the Catholic Church and the Pope to speak out against the war waged by America against Iraq. It's fair game to question the story and equally fair to defend the Church's moral authority.

As for your statement that "some of what [I] posted was just plain wrong," well, back it up, chief. Back it up.