Having been raised very 'Low' Protestant, Catholicism has always confused me. Being much older now and educated in the history and theology of Christianity I can understand it much more fully. This program was very helpful in giving me even more clarity on the mindset of Roman Catholics. Nonetheless it is continually disconcerting how 'Cathlocentric' and conservative younger Catholics are. For a church who stresses, over-against Protestantism, that 'Tradition' should play an authoritative role, it is interesting how much criticism Vatican II receives as it is no different in principal from Vatican I or even the Council of Trent.

The show you aired on living as a Catholic was the best one I've ever heard. I will admit there's some bias because I am Catholic, but please hear me out.

I sometimes enjoy the show, but rarely is there a connection. To hear peoples' honest reactions: what they love about being Catholic, what is difficult, and all the different ways of being Catholic was very real. I have found that to be in the right place spiritually usually includes a very practical and peaceful place. While this show is very interesting most of the time, this show topped the charts because it was people's real experience in the world with their faith. Both the good and bad. Peaceful and difficult.

This is all to say: I want more! I would love to hear a similar show, but about Islam, Buddhism, Protestantism (which is huge and would have to be divided by types, probably), Judaism, or any religion. Religion is a difficult and complex thing to live with often. But, most of us are in the middle of it! What a brilliant tool for us to learn about each other if there were more honest and open discussions like the one you had with all the points of view and experiences in Catholicism.

In the meantime, thank you, thank you, thank you, for such a beautiful and inspirational show. I loved it.

Speaking About Faith on Sunday, May 4, 2008, featured Catholics describing the feeling of joy and the beauty of the architecture in Catholic churches. I too have admired the beauty of churches around the world. One unforgettable experience was in the church of Johann Sebastian Bach with a cello solo playing from on high in the dim light of an empty church where the spirit seemed to come from heaven itself. Had the comments stopped there, I would have understood and would have been one with those who spoke.

But comments went on to practices of the Catholic hierarchy and criticized the denial of women's participation equally with men and the celibacy of priests. I wondered why the criticism stopped there and made no mention of sexual abuse of children by priests and the cover-up by the church hierarchy, the persecution of Jews from the Inquisition to modern times, the silence of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, the refusal of the Vatican to this day to open its files for the period of the genocide of Jews. Libraries of books on these subjects have been written by Catholics and others. Speaking of Faith cannot avoid these subjects as if history never happened.

As I emailed friends the link to this program, I warned them that they would disagree with some of the essayists. I told them that what was so wonderful was the love of each for the Church and for the sacraments. If these people were put in the same room, they might have a shouting match, but there they are united in their love of the Church and Jesus in the Eucharist!

I had never heard from someone who had been excommunicated and was surprised that bitterness had not overtaken her. My thanks to all the speakers! I was also moved to tears and felt so very grateful for our Faith — in its varied expressions.

While listening to the reflections of Bonnie Amesquita, my husband asked me, "Sharon is that you talking?" So much of what she said is how I feel and I actually almost started crying while listening. I was a cradle Catholic. Raised in the 50's and 60's and attended Catholic school 1st grade through 12th. I loved my school, most of the nuns and some were my best friends. I entered the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati and stayed for 4 years, having taken vows for one year. My life was pretty ordinary — married, had two children and attended Mass weekly and was a Sunday school teacher and my boys went through all the classes through Confirmation.

In 1995 my husband and I divorced and that was the start of my feeling unwelcome in the Church. I tried to get an annulment (so ridiculous!) but did it because my dad encouraged me to do it. Of course that didn't go through, but I remarried anyway and eventually had to stop going to the Catholic Church. I was going every week but when I went to Communion I knew I wasn't "supposed" to do that. Then a few years ago I decided to go to Mass one Sunday instead of the Lutheran church I had been attending with my husband. It was near election time and the priest actually got up and read what the bishop said the members should do about voting. I was appalled! I walked out of there with tears in my eyes feeling like a stranger in a place that I had called home for 55 years.

When will the Catholic Church ever realize that Jesus really did want the sinners to be with him and not just the perfect people? When will the Church realize that married men and women are perfecly capable of being priests? There would be no shortage of priests if the church would open its heart and let the spirit in and see all the people ready to serve!

Yes, I know I have a lot of anger with the Church and hurt, but I know I'll always be a Catholic.

This past week's presentation "The Beauty and Challenge of Being Catholic" hit me right between the eyes. I am a practicing, cradle Catholic. Your eloquent guests said so much that spoke to me directly, saying in public many things that I have thought about but rarely articulate. And certainly couldn't have articulated them half as well as the people on the program.

I hope you plan to put together some kind of study guide for use by church groups who could find this material grist for a number of mills. The program merits multiple listens (as I am doing).

Keep up the good work. You really hit a home-run with this program.

Although I appreciate listening to all views on faith, I am always amazed at the spotlight that is given to "fallen away Catholics" in a forum on the Catholic Church. No other religion is consistenly profiled around its non-believers.

The Catholic Church welcomes all in and all back if they have strayed. However, their remain solid beliefs on life and the innocents, on the sanctity of the family and marriage that are God given. There is no vote or cafeteria choice here!

We pray everyday for your return

I found myself moved to tears while listening to SoF on a drive home. I never cry, and I had no idea where the tears, sadness, and hope for reconciliation came from. From being a devote Catholic, I have done everything in my power to move away from the Church. I started to move away from the Church after my return from a tour of duty in VN. I returned to a Catholic college where we dissected everything. After reading Jung and the "Gilgemesh", i found that I had lost my faith. I am now 66 and looking at the end of my life. I need to complete me and your program awakened something in me that I felt was long gone. Thank you.

Your May 2nd program was masterful. I am a life long Catholic, and have been on retreats where similar personal reflections have been offered by lay Catholics, so I was not hearing anything new. But you edited and contextualized the various reflections is a way that showed the depth and variety of Catholic experience to a wider audience. I personally know and love a Catholic who could have submitted each kind of reflection, across the spectrum. Yup, that's really us!

I was recently listing the full interview with Franciscan Sister Katarina Schuth. The question was asked if it was the conservative seminaries that caused the abuse scandal in recent years. If you would look at the history of the diesis where the problems arose they were liberal not conservative.

I live in what is considered by many to be the most conservative diocese on the country. In the last 40 years only one priest has been accused of abuse, it was not hidden, the priest was arrested and removed.

Where I understand the problem started was in the "liberal" seminaries. Seminaries where homosexual behavior was the norm and non-gay conservative men were pressured out. It has been long known here that we send our seminarians to only a handful of seminaries where the gay culture is not the main culture practiced.

One other note about our conservative diocese, We have no priest shortage, we regularly have 4 times more seminarians ordained than Manhattan NYC each year. Families from around the North America and England have moved here because the Conservative beliefs and our Bishop. The number of converts (I am one) every year in our parish alone far out numbers the proud ex-Catholics I grew up with. These people are not joining the Church because of a grievance they have with their old church but a love of the Catholic teachings.

By the Way thank you for this Sunday’s program, I found myself wiping tears of joy while listening.

I loved the format of the program on Catholicism. I am not religious myself but I really enjoy your program. It's nice hearing theologians speak but it was wonderful listening to the thoughtful Catholics that spoke on today's program. I hope you will adopt this format for some percent of your future programs. In daily life, I hear people talk about their religion but most of the time, they are just repeating shallow dogma taught to them and that does nothing to increase my respect for religion. Today's program has the opposite effect.

I write a daily haiku and Sudays' are entitled, Sacred Sunday. This is today's offering:

May 4, 2008 - Sacred Sunday

A First Communion
Eating the Body of Christ,
And chocolate cake.

The sacred and profane on the same fare. So often our encounter with the "holy" is combined with some form of food. Perhaps it is a way of providing us a little strength, or diversion, to get through it. Christmas dinner, Passover feast, Easter eggs, etc. When it comes to the God experience, something is always on the table, or, as in the case of fasting, not on the table. Whether we indulge or deny, food plays a role in many faith traditions' efforts to impress the ultimate dinner guest — God.

Eating is such a basic experience, it makes sense to use it as a means to communicate with the Grand Cook of all Creation. It is also such a mammalian thing to do. The Eucharist, instead of being seen as the spiritual equivalent of cannabalism, should be seen in the intimacy of a mother feeding her child.

Eating is one the most basic human experiences of life. It is right up there with breathing and reproducing. But, as a means of encountering the sacred, it is secondary to a related experience — feeding. Ultimately, who we invite to dine at our table, or at any table, may be in the end the most significant determinant of our ability to encounter the Real Presence.

When I awoke this morning to recorded voices discussing their religious experiences, I wasn't sure that my clock radio was tuned to "Speaking of Faith". Perhaps it was the rawness of the voices or the recordings, but I thought that I was listening to cult members describing their involvement with their groups. Not the typical inspiring SoF, but a worthy listen nonetheless.

I was amused to hear the Manassas, Virginia man describe how, in his search for a more traditional church experience, he and his family drive 35 miles one way each week to a church in Washington, DC. My remembrance of the pre-Vatican church was that your parish membership was chained to geographical proximity. Indeed, I can recall the voices of my Roman Catholic friends and their parents complaining long and hard about their parish priests— specifically their conservative politics, their extravagant lifestyles, and their insistence on physical contact. They had no choice in parish or priest at the time. I wish that the Manassas man and his family understood that their ability to attend the church of their choice is one small but important benefit of the Church's policy changes since the early 1960s.

One other comment: Throughout the broadcast, Krista uses the phrase "The Catholic Church". When I recite the phrase "the Holy Catholic Church" in the affirmation of faith. I think of all Christians who have been brought together in the body of Christ. So I always find it ironic that the only congregations that deny me, a Christian, access to the sacrament communion are those belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. One consequence is that, when I hear the phrase "The Catholic Church", I see a trademark symbol attached where the Roman Catholic Church would like it to be. I realize that Krista is only following the lead of the Roman Catholic Church, but her choice of phrase does highlight the complexities of the Church itself. (The Nicene Creed of 325 did not include the phrase. Ah, for those simpler times…)

I did not hear my experience told on your show this morning. I was as Catholic as you can get — 12 years of Catholic education: my brother a priest, my family totally practicing. I drifted from the church as an adult over issues of birth control, etc. and frankly the feeling that I could not feel the presence of God when I went to church.

Many years later, through a series of events, I ended up going to an evangelical church one Sunday and as we sang and worshipped I felt filled with the spirit of God. I resisted the feelings; I cried every Sunday I went to church, but I could not deny the call. 3 years later I went through the full dunking baptism. I came to believe that Martin Luther was right — that the Protestant Revolution became the true church that Jesus intended.

In the description of the churches in the Revelation book of the bible, the text says: "I know your deeds, your hard workand your perseverance… Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love… " Rev 2. For me, the Catholic church has lost her first love — that of Jesus and all He stood for: acceptance, tolerance, and joy. They have banned women from the priesthood, gay men from holy orders, the use of family planning in an over populated world. But most of all, the Mass is a sterile environment: repeated prayers, boring sermons, no joy, no spontaneity, no connection between the faithful — it is sort of every person to him/herself. It is a sad imitation of the life and vitality Jesus instilled in the early church.

As a protestant, I believe that I am saved, that nothing can separate me from the love of God &heelip; no last minute mortal sin will condemn me to Hell. God has said this over and over in the Bible. I think the Catholic church sold out to the men who ruled it and wanted to frighten and control the believers. I have never regretted turning my back on such a tradition of repression and have accepted that the protestants were right back in the 15th century in their rejection of Catholicism.

I just finished listening to "The Beauty and Challenge of Being Catholic" and could relate to the last speaker, Rachel Pokora. I myself am a former Catholic, ironically, my daughter who is six attends a Catholic school. I guess I felt that she needed a part of what I went through as a youngster in a Catholic home and the positive aspects of church and being a good citizen of the world.

Before I got married, I was a practicing Catholic and was entrusted with the job as a "Eucharistic Minister" and attended various workshops and taught the young children during youth ministries. I loved what I was doing it kept me grounded from many depressing things I was going through at the time. And I needed the time with God to hear his voice once again. I fell away from the church due to the fact that I truly didn't understand the teachings of the church and how some of the traditions and "rituals" were not practices of a true Christian that God wants us to be. And I felt "lied" too.

However, I truly believe in God and have a tremendous faith for him even though I am outside of the Catholic faith. If that makes sense. There are too many elements in the Catholic liturgy I enjoy, especially being a Eucharistic Minister. A position I held highly especially given the chance to give the bread to the parishioners and saying "The body of Christ" and they profess "AMEN"! I feel so much connection and closeness to God that I really miss it very much and subconsciously never realized I missed it until I was listening to your program this morning. To end, I am still moved very deeply, yet conflicted that in what I truly believe and in what I believe is my faith…