[Mrs. Don-o]

"Again, you're only comenting based on what you see of Roman Catholicism as practiced by Americans...

Not at all. I'm commenting on Catholic doctrine: what the Catholic Church actually teaches, and what she promotes as a holy way of life. If there are Catholics who worship idols, they are doing it in ignorance of, or in defiance of, Catholicism --- and not because of it.

[Free Baptist]

"Not at all. I'm commenting on Catholic doctrine: what the Catholic Church actually teaches, and what she promotes as a holy way of life. If there are Catholics who worship idols, they are doing it in ignorance of, or in defiance of, Catholicism --- and not because of it."

Well, the priests there are not interested in correcting it. I spent a few weeks over full six years in the Philippines without any furlough (1998 to 2004), and my advisers were educated Filipinos (airline pilots, business executives, military officers, others), and we were kept alerted to nuances of meaning as we labored among Filipinos. (20 years in East Asia thus far, and our work in the Philippines continues)

Don't get upset as if it is only Catholicism I am looking at. I just wrote two letters to fairly prominent Baptist pastors in the United States who spend a lot of money in the Philippines. They are intelligent men and highly educated. They tend to believe that people in the Philippines who use their money and claim to be a part of the same movement actually believe and practice the same things that Americans in their movement believe and practice. Well, it just ain't so, and I am tasked to inform them.

Now, your movement, if you will, Catholicism, is not even based in America, but in the Vatican, Rome, Italy. The doctrine may read on paper the same from country to country, but practices are sure not the same once you actually cross the borders, I guarantee you.