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Here on earth, I have never, not once in my entire life, ever, heard a Catholic say he/she was not a Christian.

And yet, that statement disproves nothing of what the writer says happened to him.

Here on Free Republic's Religion forum, on various threads, the defacto expression by some RCC members has been that they are Catholic first and foremost and will not always identify themselves as Christian unless pressed. Then these posters proceed to lambaste other FReepers by posting that Catholics were and are the only true Christians.

Go look. Seek. You'll find such FR RF posts if you really try.

"Then these posters proceed to lambaste other FReepers by posting that Catholics were and are the only true Christians.>

I attest to this .. this is true. I have seen it here many times.

However, the protestants here do the same damn thing.

Meanwhile, Islam advances.

No thanks.

I’ve been posting here for nine years and reading threads here longer than that, and I have never seen a post like the ones you describe.

I’m satisfied that they are quite rare, or even nonexistent.

I'm in a mood for sharing and this may shed some light on this discussion.

I was baptized a Catholic, did first communion, Confirmation and then my brother drowned at our Catholic school, my father was badly wounded in Vietnam and the priests spoke out against the war. My father was a Marine who was hospitalized for over 2 years and lived. I grew to hate the church, the priests, all the gold I saw in the cathedrals and as a young adult, I left. But as time passed I remembered a priest also helped comfort me at the time of my brother's death in such a manner that even today I look at death the way he described it.

I left the church in every way. No mass, no confession and no communion. After 28 years a friend of mine who I played tennis with and was as nice a man as I've ever met filled with the love of life and his family took me to a Promise Keepers event. I was stunned. It was like a blanket had been taken off of me. That's when I began my long journey back to the Lord.

I talked to my father about Catholicism many times and he was a devout Catholic and told me that priest and even the pope are men but the Church is God's way of leading us towards him and that men are sinful, foolish, greedy and weak but God's love and gifts are eternal and true.

I've always believed but grew to love God. Slowly after being gone from the Church in a moment of despair I went to confession. I nearly cried after I had unburdened myself and was told that "all saints have a past and all sinners have a future" (not original but comforting and appropriate for me)

I identify myself as a Roman Catholic because that's the path that I chose to lead me to Christ. I pray to saints, apostles and the Virgin Mary in order for them to PRAY FOR ME. Just as I ask my friends to pray for me or my family to pray for me. It fills me with a sense of comfort to know that I can pray in the form of a rosary to our Lord but that it invokes the Hail Mary as well as the Our Father.

I read the bible, I believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, I know that he gave his son to show us how to be penitent and that he gave his life for my sins. I also ask a priest as often as I can to forgive my sins so that I may be in good grace if my life ends. I go to confession in order to FACE my sinfulness and be accountable not to my ego filled excuse making mind but to an outside person that makes me verbalize what it is that I've done and what it is that I'm going to do to make it right in God's eyes.

I thank God and some times a saint for help in lost causes or to protect and allow his will to be done. I pray that the Lord gives us understanding to accept all manner of evil, tragedy, death and disease that befall us but know that is what we as men must suffer to realize that there are "worldly" concerns and "spiritual" concerns.

I am a Christian. I am a Roman Catholic.

Joshua 24:15 But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."