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Listen. Please. This is what it’s like, sometimes, explaining one’s religious beliefs and conduct to people who are impervious to a more accurate understanding of other Christians’ doctrines and practices.

I can see your point, my point is that even though a ritual may not in itself be bad but if it is not in scripture but still practiced by one religion or another it is not going to bring the beliefs together.

What it does is to distract the believers from the real reason why we are believers.

Religion comes from the word ritual, Jesus Christ is not all about ritual but about truth, and very little truth comes from ritual.

Even if some ritual contains truth it is not needed because the truth are in the scriptures and we need nothing more.

Thank you for a thoughtful response. There are points where we agree, and points where we don’t agree... yet... :o)

Let me go back to the Shape Note analogy. This type of singing is not part of specifically Catholic history and heritage, having developed in an almost exclusively Protestant culture (it reached its high point in the 19th century U.S. rural south/Southern Appalachia.) It’s not everybody’s half pint of sweet cider, but I really love it.

It doesn’t have to be divisive. It can be hugely enriching and heart-warmingly uniting. (The Gaia crisis was absolutely unprecedented in my experience!!)

Shape note definitely has its own ritual aspects.

I would strongly dispute the idea that “very little truth comes from ritual” as you said. The kind of ritual most Americans can relate to, I suspect, are traditional marriage ceremonies and traditional military funerals.

Lots of truth there, and beauty too.