Judge not, that you may not be judged.

I suppose I'll never understand the power that a church can have over its people.  Being a Catholic, I'm often lumped into the category of "follower" and accused of being a puppet. People make snide comments about Catholics thinking they are always correct, the only true church, Catholic "guilt", the list goes on and on.  I wasn't raised Catholic, I wasn't even baptized Catholic. I attended Catholic school for one year, the seventh grade.  Years later, pregnant with my first child (out of wedlock), I turned to the Catholic Church. Despite its reputation, no one denounced me, or ever mentioned that I wasn't Catholic, wasn't married, or that I had sex outside of marriage.  I was welcomed into their faith, arms wide open, without any judgment.  I converted to Catholicism at 19 years old, and was very happy with that decision for many years.

During those years since, I've seen blatant disrespect from certain other faiths over many different traditions and rites.  When my daughter was six months old, and ready to be baptized, the God Parents whom I selected were Baptists. My church had no issue with that, they only asked that a Catholic would "stand up for them", effectively backing them up.  When baptism day came, my daughter was stripped of her chosen Godparents... not by the Catholic Church, but by the Baptist Church.  Not believing in the baptism of babies, they had to refuse to even attend the extremely important event in my daughters religious path.  A few years later that same couple was unable to attend my wedding. Not because they didn't believe in marriage, but because they couldn't attend a Catholic wedding.

Why the cold shoulder? Can't we all just get along?  When I went through my classes to convert to Catholicism, I was specifically taught that it is not my place to judge anyone or any other faith. That religion was the spiritual choice and calling of each individual person.  We were taught to rejoice and celebrate the births of all babies, the marriages of all couples, the passing of each person who had gone on to join Jesus in heaven.  We were encouraged to visit and partake in everyone's religious traditions and to do so joyfully.  We were taught to love our neighbors and to treat each and every person just as we wanted to be treated ourselves.

I've had my struggles with my faith, I think probably many people do, although far more often than I think I should.  Recently though, I think I've come to a few new realizations.  My difficulty isn't with my faith, or my Church.  My difficulty has been with certain people and their "old ways" and the new politics of my Church.  The Catholic Church, separate from the Catholic faith, is a very flawed organization.  Every religion with the historic age that the Catholic church has, I believe has had bumps in its road and has erred in some ways.  I recognize those of my church, and I appreciate that we have learned so many lessons from them.  My disappointment with my religion is the political way, rather than religious and righteous way, that they handle some of the bumps in their road.  My disappointment is in our inability to grow and evolve and adapt to the world we live in, and our inability sometimes to "practice what we preach", for example, why are women not yet priests?  I believe our religion supports it, but for whatever reasons, our Church has not caught up.

Yesterday, we buried my grandmother.  She was a Catholic, although was unable to attend mass regularly, as she had given all of her time to care for her blind husband and severely disabled son for most of her life. When her husband passed back in 1995, she struggled to care for her son and needed visiting nurses and aides to assist. Still, she cared for him in her home, business as usual.  Until the day came that she suffered a stroke that cost her the use of one side of her body, and everything changed.  My aunt and her family moved into her house, which was next door to us) and we converted a family room into a bedroom for my handicapped uncle.  This lasted a few years, but eventually, my uncle ended up living in special homes for people with severe handicap, homes better equipped to care for him.  And then my Grandmother ended up in a nursing home, gradually deteriorating from dementia and the general tolls of old age.  She turned 90 years old on March 20th, and a week later, we were saying our goodbyes.  She was ready to be reunited with the love of her life, and God was ready to bring her there.

Her plot was already reserved, right beside her husband, in the Catholic cemetery that she chose for them when she buried him following his Catholic funeral services.  Sixteen years later, we followed suit.  She had a viewing, followed by a formal Catholic funeral mass and burial.  Respectful of her faith and the decisions she had made for herself and her husband many years earlier.

Why then, would a few people who were of a different faith find fault in this plan?  Why would you think it would be okay to have the funeral at YOUR church, a different faith entirely than that of the deceased?  Why would that even be a consideration?  This Baptist religion, so quick to point the finger at Catholics, but has proven itself time and time again, to be the very things it accuses the Catholic religion of.

I try to not generalize, because as a Catholic, I see how different each diocese is from the next.  However, in three different instances, from three different churches in three different parts of the country, Baptists have looked down their noses at us with the very air of arrogance that they accuse me of.

Let's not even get started on the Westboro Baptist Church.

"Judge not, that you may not be judged, For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." Matthew 7: 1 & 2