------------ From "SAVING GRACE", by Martha Manning: ___ : "Catholic children are used to guilt by association. Hell, we were guilty before the ink dried on our birth certificates. According to the tenants of our faith, we were all born with original sin. No tabula rasa for us. we started off at a handicap. Born 'looking' beautiful and innocent, we were tainted in the same invisible way that bad genes are transmitted from one generation to the next. As sin goes, it was hardly original. It is more like revisited sin, regurgitated sin, generational sin. With baptism, we were freed from original sin. But it didnt take with me. I am still one of the guiltiest people I know. Not the baddest, just the guiltiest............. There are no absolutes about guilt. For some people a little goes a long, long way. And for others, a lot goes nowhere. Guilt is a sophisticated experience. It involves being able to feel bad about a transgression, regardless of its outcome. If our parents and teachers train us right, we associate doing bad things with a loss of their approval and love. The ability to do this is usually a product of the I'm-so-disappointed-in-you school of behavior management. If they do it with enough frequency and finesse, after a while we dont need our parents in sight to feel those lousy feelings. We begin to take over all roles: the accused, the judge, and the jury. We can make ourselves feel like pond scum without ever having to go anywhere or talk to anyone. The action is totally internal.......... THE MAJOR FUNCTION OF GUILT IS NOT SO MUCH TO MAKE US FEEL BAD "AFTER" WE'VE SINNED, BUT TO BUILD IN AN ALARM SYSTEM THAT SOUNDS EVERY TIME WE EVEN "BEGIN" TO VENTURE INTO BADNESS........ My parents and my teachers did a wonderful job. I have a superego so powerful it could get Los Angeles under control. My parents were incredibly adept at the we're-so-disappointed-in-you method of guilt induction. It was a powerful technique because, unlike the sting of punishment, which disappeared whenever the sentence was up, guilt had NO clear ending! There was no one day when all of a sudden my parents said, "All right, time's up. We're not disappointed in you anymore." ... Fri 6-10-99......... ------------------------ under construction

----- Also from "Chasing Grace" by Manning, (As in chasing a state of grace):::: The preparation of my First Holy Communion was just a horrible extension of my First Confession. Even to an innocent seven year old, the contempt in which the teachers (nuns) and the children of my parish held "public school" kids was glaring. (Note: Because public schools were full of degenerate non-Catholics)... I was well aware that the most essential, albeit narcissistic, distinction IN THE WORLD was that of Catholic versus Non-Catholic. I also knew that in the Catholic church's eyes, the VERY BEST public school couldnt begin to approach the very worst Catholic School. I never minded (Catechism), the consolation prize for public school children. Since we were ALL outside the circle, we were spared painful comparisons. We sat for only one hour each week in the classrooms of the "chosen', cramming into a short time what our counterparts could leisurely digest in an entire week. It wasnt until second grade, when the public school kids were integrated with the Catholic school kids to receive the sacraments of penance and Communion, that the different feeling returned and I remembered how much I hate it........ Several days before the Saturday of our First Communion, we public school second graders had to miss parts of our own school day to join the econd graders at (St Anthony's) for the final practice sessions. As a little kid i could never tell which part of the ceremony was actual sacrament and which part was pomp and circumstance. Certainly the nuns didnt differentiate it for us. EVERYTHING was critical- from the way we genuflected in absolute time with our partners, to the way we knelt at the Communion rail, to the synchrony of standing, kneeling and sitting in our seats. Somewhere in there you stuck out your tongue and received the Holy Eucharist, but the main energy was always directed at the surrounding show..... Tues 6-16-99....... ------------------------- more to come

-_____ wed 8-4-99_______--------WHY ROMAN CATHOLICS HATE SO-CALLED BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS:::::: A Catholic boy is taught from BIRTH to be decent and moral to others. He's honest, decent, kind, considerate as a child as Its required of him and he is taught to treat others as he would want them to treat him. He's also, from birth, told that Hell and Purgatory are objective FACTS and that even if he does NOT want to be decent to others he had BETTER be anyway. As not only will he be punished here on Earth by parents, priests and the law but also after death as well. Soon after starting Elementary School the child is placed in Catechism. He spends at least an hour each Wednesday being taught the FACT that he should be decent, honest, moral, virtuous and considerate of others. He also hears this at home from parents and other relatives. There are many times when he could have gotten away with doing something bad but he does not as he knows it is wrong and he would also be ashamed. He also believes that 'God' knows, even if noone else would ever find out. And if he DOES slip he knows he will have to admit it in Confession where he will get punished by the priest. As a teenager he is restrained from the corrupt pleasures of the non-Catholics. He can't drink or smoke or have sex- even when a girl he really likes actually wants him to. A male Catholic is expected to say no just like a female. So the Catholic goes through his life saying no to many things that arent 'Christian' even though they could bring him money or things he wants or sexual pleasure or whatever. He controls himself and learns to do without much of what he would like to have or to do. He also has to put up with many people around him who are constantly trying to corrupt him. He's under constant pressure from non-Catholics and from his own desires, especially as a teenager. But he does without while watching those around him wallowing in such things and getting away with various illegal, immoral, and unethical acts. And a Catholic knows he's supposed to be like this for LIFE: from Birth until Death. ......... ............. In the meantime others are wallowing in every pleasurable thing from birth. They dont care whom they hurt, or use, or steal from, or cheat. They wallow in the vices with no concern for virtue or civilization or anything. This goes on until the non-Catholic hits middle-age. At this point the degenerate has wallowed in every filthy thing, had no restraint, made no sacrifices, had no decency towards others- or honesty or consideration. But now things happen. He may have already tried every dirty thing and now got bored. Or he may have overdosed on something and had to stop. Or maybe something else stopped him. Maybe he's just burned out and worn out from wallowing in all his corruptions. But have you ever noticed that these degenerates don't become born-again' until they are middle-aged? ...... And now that they have already TRIED everything, only now do they stop. And the moment they stop they think everyone else should stop. But they are just degenerate hypocrites still as they ONLY reason they stopped was that they got OLD and had to stop or already tried every dirty thing. Yet now that they have stopped they demand that everyone else immediately stop. AND IF THEY FOUND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH THAT WOULD MAKE THEM 16 AGAIN THEY WOULD GO RIGHT BACK TO BEING DEGENERATES. Now think of that: On the one hand you've got the Catholics saying NO to all these evil things that could get them either ahead in life or physical pleasure and on the other side you've got these degenerates who did not restain themselves for the sake of morality and civilization all those years but who only stopped Because they got OLD. And now the 30 year degenerates have the GALL to preach to the Catholics who were decent ALL their lives and not just because they got OLD. ..... A good thing about the Catholic church is that it does NOT try to convert people here in the USA. Imagine being a good Catholic boy and you are in church sitting next to someone who was decent until, say, 13 and then wallowed in every filthy thing until he was 30 and then joined the Catholics. Now what sort of message would that send you? It would tell the Catholic boy that he can just leave the church for as many years as he wants, wallow in every vice, and then come back after he's satiated and too old to want to wallow anymore. Heck, the church would then have almost nobody between puberty and middle age! No, a decent person should be decent ALL of his life, not just only when he's gotten too old to be indecent. IT IS EASY TO BE DECENT AFTER YOU HAVE HIT MIDDLE AGE ANYWAY. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT BETWEEN THE AGE OF PUBERTY AND MIDDLE-AGE. Any jek over 30 can be easy. But try it between 12 and 29! THAT is the TEST of your sincerity. Wed 8-4-99.....