A Confession by The Curmudgeon:

A Confession by The Curmudgeon:
Why I'm Leaving the Catholic Church Again

When your humble servant returned to the church based in Rome almost 2 years ago after nearly 30 years of absence from it --including at least 15 years of off-and-on study, prayer, discussion, and even debate (mostly with myself) about the differences between Evangelicalism and Catholicism-- I thought I knew what organization I was rejoining and what it taught and practiced.

But in just the one short year in which I've had the opportunity to read the real experts, such as Dave Hunt, Jack Chick, Mike Gendron, James White, William Webster, Eric Svendsen and the many highly experienced ex-Catholics and knowledgable non-Catholics on the many Fundamentalist web sites and message boards --especially Berean Call, Mission to Catholics, Good News for Catholics, White Horse Publications, Former Catholics For Christ, Proclaiming The Gospel, and Jesus Is Lord-- I have experienced what can only be called an Epiphany.

These good folks, you see, have revealed to the rest of us the many outrageous and cultish things of true Catholicism...

Things like worshiping Mary and the Saints. (After all, at least they're fellow human beings. And since most of Americans are already used to worshipping movie stars or sports heroes, the transition is a cinch!) And praying to statues. (One does concentrate better praying to the visible rather than the invisible.)

Things like killing Jesus and practicing ritual cannibalism and vampirism every Sunday at Mass. (Works for me! All those Stephen King novels take too much time, and they're pretty expensive when you add 'em all up. And have you seen how expensive it is to go the movies these days? I say let's keep horror and violence in the church, where it belongs!).

Things like earning my salvation on my own power and by my own works instead of through faith by God's grace alone. (But isn't that the whole idea???)

Things like equating Mary or the Pope with Jesus Christ, or --better still-- placing them above Jesus Christ. (Well, why not? Jesus is meek and humble, so why would He care? Sheesh! Some folks are real buttinskis!)

Things like believing that the Bible is full of errors. (A rather convenient doctrine with much great potential for freedom and liberty, IMO. It works for mainline Protestants, Bishop Spong, and Hollywood Christians, so why not for us?)

Things like doing whatever the Pope or some bishop, priest, or nun tells us to do without question. (What's wrong with that? I get Sister Lucy Ricardo's direction on what tires to put on my car or what stocks to invest in all the time.)

Things like engaging in secret global cabals to undermine other churches, create a one-world religion, enthrone the Anti-Christ, and take over the world. (As a devoted disciple of Pinky and the Brain, I've always had a secret, unspoken desire to rule the world. So PLEASE count me in!)

The problem is that I've never been taught any of these things by any priest, bishop, theologian, or scholar I've read or heard or otherwise encountered in the church I rejoined in 1999. Nor do I know anyone in this church I now belong to who believes or practices any of these things.

Also --we've been told by The Experts-- the church we belong to is supposed to be the Whore of Babylon, the partner of the Anti-Christ predicted in Revelation.

But where are the signs of this, my fellow Catholics? I can't find 'em!

Instead of the more exciting activities of debauchery, drunkenness, and demonism promised by the Whore, we've been getting the same drab old Christian things in our parishes and Catholic media like the Gospel, biblical studies, theology, the sacraments, praying, miracles, the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, and the Death of Jesus on the Cross for the sins of the world. And that's not even to mention all those priests, nuns, and lay scholars preaching and teaching the same old boring and tired Christian virues like faith, hope, charity, chastity, obedience, patience, self-sacrifice, and sharing in Jesus's sufferings for the sake of others.

I left Evangelicalism to get away from all that stuff! Instead, now I get it in spades from this church I rejoined!

No wonder I've had this nagging feeling that something was missing!!!!

Something is clearly amiss, my dear fellow (so-called) Catholic friends, and there is only one logical explanation:

WE'VE BEEN CHEATED!!! We are in the WRONG Catholic Church!!!

Indeed, we have cleaved ourselves unto a Faux Whore and have joined an ersatz Catholic Church --a phony, a pretender, a counterfeit, an imposter! All this time I thought I was a Catholic, but thanks to The Experts, it seems I was mistaken --along with the rest of you and all our priests and bishops, the Pope, and the entire Vatican. Thanks to The Experts, the truth is finally out there (eat your heart out, Mulder):

NONE of us are Catholics!

What then are we to do? Obviously, it's back to Square One. So can someone kindly point us in the direction of the true Catholic Church, the real Whore of Babylon, revealed to us by The Experts so that we may join the right one this time??? I for one really hate being on the wrong road like this! I long to find the authentic Whore of Babylon so that I may dance sky-clad with her under a full moon in a Bacchanalian Frenzy whilst Old Scratch, Beelzebub himself, plays the fiddle for us. Only then will I find true peace!

And to those of you who decide to remain in this bogus Catholic Church and pseudo-Whore:

It's been nice knowin' ya, suckers! Toodles!

your wandering humble servant,

The Curmudgeon

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