A response to Kelly Scoles’ letter:

Hi Kelly,

Whether or not you see “an audience for Catholic Church history” shouldn’t dissuade you from hearing opinion which
contradicts your own. I listen to and evaluate opinions, most of which dispute my own. It’s my hope that you will at least
understand what the Church actually teaches before condemning it.

The “Church” I know you remember, is not the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops or priests. They are only the administration. The
“Church” is the 1.4 billion lay members who follow Jesus Christ as its head, with the Pope its earthly leader acting “In
Persona Christi” (in the person of Christ). It has been that way for more than 2,000 years. Everyone has absolute free will to accept or reject the faith. You chose to reject it, with multi-billions of others. So, we can debate this greatest of
human issues with peaceful respect – something we cannot do in Russia, China, or North Korea. My faith imbues my thinking
about everything, including the existence of God, aliens, UFOS, and artificial intelligence. The difficulty here is that
you no longer share my faith, while without it, for me, truth could no longer be recognized. Life would have no meaning for
me without my faith, and living in God’s will is the only perfect goal. Simplistic as it may appear, all the questions you
challenge me with are immediately answered, whether by “medieval mysticism” or traditional theology (nothing wrong with the
Church Fathers’ or historic theology). Saints Augustine and Aquinas are still universally venerated by today’s Christines.
You and I have very different belief foundations, which makes discussion interesting.

The point I want to make here is that Catholicism has no “versions” or “mixes”, its core is well defined in dogma. Billions
may strongly disagree on that dogma, which to Catholics means God will show his Divine Will without confusion in His time.
His Will reveals, as you say, “who good, who bad,” also “why we exist,” “how to honor the pilgrimage of others”, “how to
support our human experience”, “how to invoke God’s Will”, “how to detect God’s whisper, (Holy Spirit),” “how to find
“refuge in “reality”, “how and why we “exist on planet earth”, “why Marian prophecies are a significant resource for most
people” [once heard], “why Trump should not be fooled by Putin”, “why Epstein (not judging) is, in all probability, in
Hell”, “why we should not “cozy up to Putin” who may also, in all probability end in Hell”, “no megalomaniacal president
should spasmodically or otherwise, destroy our government”, “no citizen should view the movie “A Face in the Crowd” until I
have seen it, “no deviant politician should take chicken fertilizer and sell it to anyone as caviar” Only a Democrat would
have a scheme like that.

*****

Without trying to live in God’s Will, Kelly, some clever atheist is going to sell you a load of fake chicken caviar, though
I question the idea of chicken fertilizer itself.