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This always strikes me as ironic: Catholics church shop for
conservative or liberal parishes. I understand that you will
tell me that they are all still RC, but when you come right down to it this is remarkably similar to what other Christians
do.

>>but when you come right down to it this is remarkably similar to what other Christians do.<<

I agree. But the difference is that Our parish Priests (who are human) have their own ideas about politics. We can’t ditch them and find a new one. We move ourselves and our cash to a new parish if we disagree with their politics.

The old problem of "same and other."

The "same": Some Catholics 'church shop'. (Some, not all. My famdamily went to the same parish for maybe a decade because it was the one we were closest to, and for no other reason. As soon as I had a good pastoral duty to move to my current parish I did, but not before.)

The "other": I would venture that Catholics who "church shop" go from one Catholic parish to another, not from one denomination to another, and if there were no other Catholic parish they'd stay where they were and either mutter in their beards or make life miserable for the pastor.

BECAUSE the pastor is not the "show." Jesus is the show. The pastor is no more than either an enhancement or a nuisance.

And I KNOW this because I read a review of a TV show which had a discussion about radio talk show where one of the guys interviewed said he found some stone carvings in The Anasazi site which mentioned that some Catholics move from parish to parish. So it MUST be true.

"...when you come right down to it this is remarkably similar to what other Christians do."

Eek! O noes!

It might have something to do with the unfortunate prevalence of all kinds of madcap, makeshift, backslidden, tawdry, shufflin', substandard (ahem) "human beings" in "churches"?