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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When I was a kid (Episcopalian), I visited some Catholic relatives when I was around 10 or 11 years old. They took me to church on Sunday, which was fine, similar enough to what I knew from home. Not thinking anything of it, I joined my cousins in line for communion, took communion from the priest like anyone else, and that was the end of it. When I got home and told my chill parents, they laughed because I "shouldn't" have taken communion, and for years it became this big family joke that if the Catholics in our family were right, I was going to hell for taking communion as a non-Catholic.

But that's not what was uncomfortable. What was uncomfortable was decades later, at a relaxed meal with professional colleagues, having the occasion to tell this story while the dinner conversation was on the topic of kids not understanding things. A colleague seated across from me absolutely BLEW UP at me about this. How disrespectful that was to the church, how could I treat "the host" with such contempt, how my relatives should have known better and how could they have let me, how could I not have known better, etc. It made everyone at the table beyond visibly uncomfortable.

The irony was that he himself was a VERY recent convert to Catholicism, though very devout (as converts always are). Man, what a jerk.[/quote]

You were both wrong.  He was a jerk for blowing up at you.  You are a jerk for making a joke out of other people’s sincere religious beliefs that don’t affect you in any way.[/quote]

PP here. That's fair and I'll take the criticism. I don't "joke" about it the way my family did when I was a teenager, for that reason. In my defense, to have my parents reveal to me that an entire religion believed I was going to hell as a 10-year old for innocently following my cousins in what appeared to be the same kind of communion line I went to at home was something that had to be done with humor. To tell it to me at that age without humor would have been terrifying. (Of course, I would not have been the first child deeply scarred by Roman Catholicism.)[/quote]

Great job pretending to apologize and then launching another insult at the end.  How very ecumenical of you.  Seems to be a character trait.

Perhaps the likelihood of punishment for your mistake will depend on how you react to learning you, yes accidentally, disrespected someone’s tradition?  I know if I disrespected your tradition I would actually apologize and not mock you and then pretend apologize while still insulting you.  [/quote]

Oh, please. She didn't disrespect Catholicism by taking communion. She was a child and didn't know any better. [/quote]

Failing to show respect in an accidental manner, such as by not removing one's shoes in a Mosque, is not a big deal if the mistake was not purposeful and the person refrains from doing it in the future.  Making a "big family joke" about it and telling the story in a mocking way in interfaith and professional setting is disrespectful.

There is a weird loophole among mainline types, Episcopalians being the worst offenders, of being taught be scrupulously (even ostentatiously) respectful of religions like Islam, Judaism, etc.  But then mocking, insulting, sneering, condemning Mormons, Catholics and other Christian denominations.  It's not surprising since there is a long, long history of Episcopalian bigotry against those groups and people.  So it's nothing new, it's just a continuation of the same practices hundreds of years later.

Just don't mock other people's faith, period, especially when it doesn't impact you.  If they want you to take off your shoes, then do it.  If they do not want to you enter to a certain part of their temple or participate in certain rituals, don't.  Treat others how you would want to be treated.  It's quite basic, really.  [/quote]

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