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I think people who are not Catholic think of our Church as being just a bunch of arbitrary rules. They try to understand things out of context.

I would liken it to trying to take Chemistry without learning to read first. You might know math but if you can't read you will be lost.

Catholicism starts for most people at birth. I remember how most of my Catholic friends would say the Rosary while nursing the baby. Using the fingers and toes instead of beads. Singing the hymns to the baby.

My first gift to new parents is usually a glow in the dark crucifix for the baby's crib. Babies go to Mass until what 3ish then we have that brief Sunday school period until they start school.

For Catholics the Church is not just a place to go on Sunday. The Parish is our home, we are family. The parish walks through everything with us from birth to death. When people criticize priests, they truly don't understand why we defend them so. He's not a symbol or a caricature. He's our spiritual father. He's there if you are hurt in the hospital, a family member is dying. He Baptizes us, he shares in our sorrows and joys and the face may change over the years, but the vocation PRIEST, means something. There are men who have undertaken the vocation unworthily just as people enter marriages that should not have.

Father rejoices with you as your children triumph and cries with you when they fail. He lifts you up or kicks your butt, depending on what you need that day. He's a shoulder to cry on or a friend to laugh with. Father is the one who comes and sits with you as you die and comforts your family and leads them through the dark days to the other side. On the one hand a priest is no greater then any other man, but he sacrifices his will to do God's will and some will just never understand it. Some will never understand the difference in the priest as man and the priest as in persona Christi, during sacraments. I guess they like going it alone. I'll tell you what thought when you are at rock bottom and the last person who will talk to you may very well be a priest. If you are not Catholic maybe it's impossible to see it. I don't know. But when the chips are down, Father always come through.