What kind of Catholic are you?

[DFW]

16. I never was. My wife comes from a Catholic family dating back to the year 1473.

She grew up in a small village with religious attitudes dating back to the late Middle Ages. Protestant children were told not to play with Catholic children, because they were evil, and vice-versa. My mom's parents, though Catholics, were considered as a little suspect, because they never told their kids any such thing. 1950s style German "liberals," if you will.

When a local priest had to be "transferred" because his molesting of local small children became too well-known to overlook, my wife, still a little girl, began to suspect something was wrong with the whole picture. As she got older, she just abandoned Catholicism altogether, not seeing anything worth believing in. She never condemned her parents, or anyone else who still believed in it, she just said this not for me, and that was it. Our daughters learned about religion in school, but never found any of it credible. We neither pushed them toward it nor away from it. From the beginning, we told them that as long as they made an informed decision, they would have our support. Their decision was "none of the above," the same as my parents both chose, as did I and my siblings.