These kind of threads always befuddle me, seeing such a retrograde, conservative institution as the catholic church accused of not being conservative and retrograde enough cracks me up to no end.
It's like, when I thought of someone as far from my own way of thinking as I can conceive, I used to picture it as a fervorous catholic... but, no, here comes someone like from other planet, someone who is a loonie even for a catholic loonie.
And all for what's written on a politically abridged copy of a translation of another translation of a collection of ancient desert goat herder lore.
So in the end it's no different than Tolkien nuts dicussing if elves really have pointy ears, or wannabe Jedis wondering about the true nature of "blue glowie Ben Kenobi". If it's not crearly spelled in your fantasy of choice, you can make up your own fancy answer, but please don't fight over it.
About the extreme pagan rites of the Catholic masses, they scare even the Pope. In southern Spain worship for some particular images of Christ or Mary is fanatical. Not long ago, a flamenco dancer, asked about werther he was religious, said "I believe in El Cachorro and La Macarena" which are two well known images of Jesus and Mary in churches in Seville. A few years ago JPII attended the "Romería del Rocío" a huge yearly pilgrimage through rivers and marshes towards an image of Mary in some chapel. He was reported astounded by the dancing, drinking and generally non pious behaviour of the pilgrims as well as the crazed crowds that storm the chapel and fight to get to touch the image, that seems to float aimlessly over the sea of raised arms trying to get hold of it.
Well, seeing that, I'd understand how this minimalist "zen" protestants are surprised, so Nuke, is not that catholics are not christians, it's just that if you remove the fiesta, religion is a bore.
