ZC: As I explained to you in a recent private Freepmail, I have decided to generally refrain from picking or performing in theological fights with my reformed brethren and sisters on Free Republic. I have little doubt that they are generally as firm in their religious affiliations as I am in mine. It is for the good of the conservative political movement that we recognize that we agree on about 95% of doctrine and make a mountain out of the rest (important as the differences may be and certainly are).
I do not want to have fights with reformed folks of perfectly good will who are my allies on life issues, marriage, the divinity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, creation, that G-d so loved he world that He sent His only begotten Son to give up His life on the Cross in atonement of our sins (however great or small) and so many other areas of agreement. My fellow Catholics and I on the one hand and our reformed brothers and sisters on the other hand, have not earned the right to squabble with each other in public before for the entertainment of our common heathen enemies.
I am not at all interested in participating in obscure arguments over what my reformed brothers and sisters in Christ may think the Holy Scriptures may mean when the Holy Father or any of his predecessors going back to Peter has taught otherwise. As I have previously told you privately, if the Roman Catholic Church, speaking through the office of the pope, says so, then that is and always will be good enough for me. I reserve the right to defend my Faith from those who claim Catholicism but are otherwise of whatever stripe. You do not make that claim.
I do not doubt that others who are not Catholic hope to act in my best interest (as they see it) or that of other Catholics by leading me or others out of the Roman Catholic Church and believe that they are sharing with me other Catholics what is most valuable to them in giving me (without my asking for it) and those other Catholics those beliefs and arguments which the reformed believe are compelling and Scriptural to require that I be what they are (non-Catholic). All I can say is that it will not happen, not now, not ever.
None of this is meant to be an offense to the sincere beliefs of the reformed but rather a recognition of their sincerity and my Catholic assertion of adherence to the Roman Catholic Faith with which non-Catholics, for whatever reasons, may disagree.
Living in a rural area of the plains in Northwest Illinois, I find it curious to be accused of belonging to a Roman Catholic religion that allegedly disses the Heartland. If anything, Catholicism is a lot stronger among Catholics in the Heartland than it tends to be in coastal precincts (where I used to live until 5 years ago, such as Los Angeles (Cardinal Mahoney), DC (Cardinal McCarrick), Baltimore (Cardinal Keeler) and others of their ilk. If our complaint is a populist complaint against imagined upper class snobbery of some Catholics, I can assure you that the pews contain few economic or social snobs. My dad was a production worker in a cardboard factory and my mom spent most of her working years at a sewing machine in a garment factory and then took a cut in pay to open mail at Yale's Admissions Office. Snobs we are not.
Half of my ancestors since Luther have been either Lutherans or Anglicans or Presbyterians and all of my wife's ancestors of recent centuries have been Anglican, Lutheran or Presbyterian. That does not lower our status nor does it raise our status. My wife has some very classy and well-known ancestors who were Plantagenets and, better yet, included Philip the Fair of France, but we still have to do all that pedestrian stuff to pay the same bills you probably have to pay and hope there is enough to save a little for the education of the Elkettes. I bless the memory of my once-Anglican paternal grandfather who chose Catholicism over bachelorhood and of my once Presbyterian maternal grandfather who chose Catholicism over bachelorhood. Intellectuality was not necessarily a reason for either of them. Their surrenders, as one might say, saved a wretch like me. My wife had more intellectual reasons but don't hold that against her.
Your last paragraph is a bit shameful and not much of an argument. I am not going to attack your faith whatever it may be just because it contains sinners, as do they all. I have never denied the sinfulness in high places or low places in my own Church and freely admit that there is all too much sin to go around in more modest characters such as me.
As to charges of "Mariolatry" or worship of statues, I cannot convey to you just how silly those charges sound to any properly catechized Catholic. They have as much weight as claims that the Red Sox are made up of natives of the planet Pluto. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I suppose it is theoretically almost vaguely possible but not really.
One thing ought always to be remembered by those non-Catholics who feel compelled to preach at Catholics their individual ideas as to what the Scriptures may mean. We do not like to be preached at by those who are not among the members (better yet, popes) of our Catholic Faith any more than non-Catholics like to be preached at by Catholics. Sometimes, we may respond forcefully. We can become angry in the face of what YOU call Fundamentalist insults. I try not to respond at all any more.
Oh, and try NOT to speak for the Heartland. It is far more diverse than you apparently suspect.
None of this post is hostile in nature to you, to Heartlanders, to modest folks or to non-Catholics.
God bless you and yours.
good posting!