What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

I am getting strange and even hysterical e-mail from quite a few people about VP candidate Sarah Palin being an "apostate Catholic". 

"BUT FATHER! BUT FATHERFATHERFATHER! WHY aren’t YOU paying ATTENTION to THIS???!?".

Some e-mail is reasonable and mature.  Some includes lots of SHOUTING and UNDERLINING. 

Tip for the future:  If you write e-mail like that to me, I delete it, mostly unread.

However, about Sarah Palin as "apostate", ...

To my knowledge Gov. Palin was baptized in the Catholic Church, but her parents left the Catholic Church for some Protestant sect when she was around 12 years old.

I don’t hold twelve-year-old children accountable for the actions of their parents.

Would that be even slightly rational?

I understand she attends a non-denominational Christian church of some sort.

"Apostasy" is accomplished by a formal act, not by being taken away from the Church as a child and then growing up in a Christian sect. 

I wish she were a Catholic!  I wish everyone were Catholic!  But she’s not, and it seems not to be her fault.

Some who are Catholic really aren’t… and in the case of some politicians that is their fault.

Until it is revealed that Gov. Palin has made some sort of formal act of apostasy from the Catholic Church or done something anti-Catholic, I think you ought to breathe deeply and regularly, trying breathing into a paper bag, and maintain some control.

And stop shouting at me about it.