Catholic
* Speak Out Advocate of homosexuality and artificial birth control.
* also celebrate saint's days
  - couldn t teach or send their children abroad for schooling
  - support changes in the clergy
  - use statues as teaching tools
* are Catholic
  - a religious minority in Vietnam
  - accustomed to assuming a variety of positions in eucharistic liturgies
  - cautious about diagnosing possession
  - christians
  - hard working people
  - in the minority in Scotland and in the country's devolved parliament
  - mainstream in American culture today
  - neither a homogeneous bloc nor automatically motivated by their church's orthodoxy
  - sacramental people
  - serial killers
  - very special people when it comes to their church
* baptize their infants.
* believe in a hell of different layers
  - original sin
* believe in the existence of Purgatory as a place and state after death
  - necessity of religious instruction in the schools
  - life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of death
* believe that at the moment of conception new life has begun
  - both faith and good works are necessary for salvation
  - marriage lifelong commitment
  - through the mechanical application of water, regeneration is imparted
  - truth is one, absolute and unchanging
* believe the Bible is divinely inspired but written by human hands
  - there are degrees of glory, which depend upon how one has responded to grace
* build their churches on a north-south axis.
* call elders rectors, or, more generically, priests
  - priests 'father'
* celebrate marriage as a sacrament.
* cherish weekly consecration of the eucharist.
* claim to see the madonna in the walls of their homes every time there thunderstorm.
* cluster, they bond, they converge, they swarm.
* constitute the largest Christian denomination.
* couldn t carry arms, teach, practice law, hold office or vote.
* do ask saints for intercessory prayers
  - that when they join a monastery or convent
* don t really care about the abortion issue.
* draw their ethical standards first from their family, like all denominations.
* earn indulgences through good deeds accompanied by confession, communion, and prayer.
* feel disgust with the media for focusing on priestly sex abuse.
* follow church doctrine only selectively, when they know it at all
  - the Alexandrian Canon
* form the largest group in the major political party and tend to be more affluent
  - single religious voting bloc in the United States - and the most fluid
* grow up making the sign of the cross.
* have America's lowest divorce rate
  - a distinct history within America
  - no problem with calling the consecrated elements bread and wine
  - nothing to say about homosexuality
  - saints for everything
  - the same freedom as other citizens in making political choices
* know that love follows upon truth.
* make and bow down to idols
  - individuals special
  - up the majority of the Christian population
* normally believe in the importance of works and sacraments in getting salvation.
* object to Protestant bibles used in public schools.
* practice evangelism, too.
* recognize a real, if imperfect communion, among all baptized.
* refer to our clergy as priests.
* say they are discriminated against in jobs and in the allocation of public housing.
* see saints as models or examples of Christian belief and living.
* share views on issues that other voters do.
* sometime seem to think that the only sin is sexual sin.
* sprinkle when the Greek work for baptism literally means immersion.
* still believe in purgatory and indulgences
  - they can earn their salvation
  - think evangelization task just for priests and religious
* swing back and forth between the Republican and Democratic parties.
* teach a system whereby righteousness is infused in the sinner.
* tend to focus on salvation as a future event, something that has yet to happen.
* think Aquinas is the best teacher for one who wants to become a priest.
* think that donation is an act of charity, fraternal love, and self sacrifice
  - sex within marriage sacrament
* use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or thing depicted.
* view organ donation as an act of charity, fraternal love and self sacrifice.
* visit Rome and shrines where miracles have taken place.
+ Christianity, Worship, Salvation
  * Catholics normally believe in the importance of works and sacraments in getting salvation. The Catholic Church teaches that faith is important, but it also believes that salvation also requires good works and piety, such as obedience to commands, taking the sacraments, going to church, doing penance and giving alms, saying prayers, and other things, to receive eternal life.
+ Heresy: Theology
  * Catholics say that good deeds are necessary as well.
+ Holiday, Religious holidays, Christian holidays
+ Thomas Aquinas: Christian theologians :: 1225 births :: 1274 deaths
  * He was the theologian who came up with the Cosmological Argument. Catholics think Aquinas is the best teacher for one who wants to become a priest. Code of Canon Law, Can. His most famous books are 'Summa Theologica' and the 'Summa Contra Gentiles'. Aquinas is one of the 33 Doctors of the Church.