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Interestingly, I never encountered the *us against them* mentality that existed between Protestants and Catholics.

I do recall being taught (and all the Catholics I grew up with believing), that Protestants were not saved and that there was no salvation outside the Catholic church, HOWEVER, there was more pity and compassion about that than condemnation and competition.

Neither was I ever exposed to the Protestant side of the issue with the *evil papists* and *Romanist* mentality. I never felt that I was on the receiving end of that kind of mentality either.

There just wasn’t the bigotry there that I ever encountered that many others have experienced. There were doctrinal differences, but I simply do not recall it causing hard feelings. Each side thought the other was wrong and on it’s way to hell, but just didn’t treat each other disrespectfully for it. It was just a fact of life.

There was no shunning going on because there were just too many other people of other faiths to be able to engage in it successfully.

My reasons for leaving the Catholic church are not my reasons for choosing to stay out of it after I left.