Catholicism (zaibatsu), 07/11/2019 ------------------------------------------------------------ For whatever reason, Catholicism has come into my space in the past few years. I met someone recently, and they expressed frustration with their pastor. I invited them to join me at church, and they came as a visitor a couple Sunday's ago. Their faith is a little different from mine. They promptly let me know that they weren't going to convert to my faith. No problems, I wasn't expecting that they would, I was just inviting them to try something else. My point is, there was no need to reassure me about their religious practices and choices, I didn't have expectations. No one in gopher space expects me to become a catholic, and yet I somehow feel the need to mention that I'll never be a catholic. Is that odd? Of course, not being a catholic doesn't preclude me learning from catholics and learning about catholics. I like to listen to catholic radio. I read a little on catholic.org and other sites. What I see encourages me. I was just thinking about it because I've got to go to Oregon in a couple weeks, and I just learned that my cousin from Sweden (who know lives in Germany) will happen to be there as well. I haven't seen him since I was a teenager. He's catholic (7 kids!). I'll have to ask himm about his faith a bit, if there's a lull in the conversation.