We Don't Need Transubstantiation at My House: We have Stove Top Stuffing instead! Little Protestant wonderlings always want to stay for dinner.

I have to admit, though, that I sympathize with the Catholic Church. Really, what's the point of having people call themselves "Catholic" if it doesn't mean anything?

I've always thought that religion should be challenging. It should be difficult, because it should call on you to do things that are atypical: love your enemies and turn the other cheek come to mind. If religion simply validates your prejudices and justifies your natural reactions, it's a bit of a farce, no? Like a religion that sees the summum bonum in big, long joints full of crazy-sticky bud and unlimited credit at a Pizza Hut that delivers at any hour. (I used to belong to that church.)

The modern outlook on religion and morality is one rooted in convenience. I mean, the abortion lobby won't even ponder the likelihood that abortion may be morally troubling, even if sensible policy means not criminalizing it. No, it would cut too deep into a woman's freedom to choose (not to mention increasing her indenture to awful things like responsible planning, caution, and the all-night pharmacy -- and the women in Kabul thought they had it rough!). Abortion must instead be not just legal but morally neutral -- and that, I think, is a big stretch.

I agree that the church is flirting with irrelevance; we may or may not think that's a good thing. And it did, at one time, have power over kingdoms, never mind a uterus. To put it in modern terms, sooner or later they have to start protecting their brand, or it will come to be meaningless. (Much like "protestant." Are ya done protesting yet?) Moral authority is a fragile thing, and the church (when it isn't busy destroying its own by diddling the altar boys and covering it up at the highest levels, that is) has to enforce it from time to time to keep it from total atrophy. (And the fact that this is a minor flap, at best, shows that nobody really gives a fig if the church denies them communion; they'll go get it from a "liberal church," assuming that their piety is more than a sham anyway.)

So if you don't much care for what the Romans teach, you might have to find something else to be. (As Razor did.) Imagine claiming to be Muslim, but thinking, "That whole 'There is but one God and Muhammed is his prophet' thing is a bit, mmmm, confining." Sorry, but as much as you might want to be or call yourself a Muslim, you ain't. At some point, you just have to get over the fact that a religion asks you to follow certain strictures.

Thus, I don't understand Catholics who say they disagree with the church on matters of ex cathedra doctrine. If they want to leave the church over those disagreements, bully for them! (I did exactly that myself.) But cafeteria Catholicism, or Islam or Buddhism or whatever, is just embarrassing. It's like going on a diet that allows you to eat what you want, f*ck with your bathroom scale, and make up your own cholesterol numbers out of thin air.

I may not believe in god, but I do believe in intellectual honesty.