[boatbums]

People make demands on Catholics all the time, demand we explain this and that, and they THINK they know what we believe. No matter how many times we tell them, they still demand hairsplitting explanations. They tell us what we believe, how we vote, how many times we read the Bible, how we do it wrong, etc.

Wellll....I would think that just goes with the territory when a religion claims to be the "ONLY, TRUE, HOLY, ONE, UNIVERSAL Church" and that all those who do not belong to it - formally - are not true Christians. I know of NO other Christian faith - with the exception of some cults - that proclaim that with such expressed AUTHORITY.

Why can it not be okay that a person who holds to the basic tenents of Christianity - and we KNOW what those are - be considered a fellow Christian, a brother or sister in the family of Christ?

[Mad Dawg]

Why can it not be okay that a person who holds to the basic tenents of Christianity - and we KNOW what those are - be considered a fellow Christian, a brother or sister in the family of Christ?

We refer to such folks as "separated brethren." The "the glass is half empty" crowd get all upset about that, but I want to stress that in saying "brethren" we are saying precisely what you WROTE thatyou wanted us to say.

However, since there are those who disagree on major points of sacramental theology and on matters concerning spiritual charisms, it would be a kind of white wash, even a sort of disrespect to fail to acknowledge the division on matters of doctrine. Therefore the use of the adjective "separated."

[Quix]

INDEED.