RicOlie_2 said:

It makes me sad and angry when I see how so many people, especially Protestants, have no idea what Catholics really believe. I was looking at an apologetics forum called "raptureforums" and pretty much nobody there has the slightest clue what Catholics or Mormons believe. They have such bizarre ideas about us it made me cringe. I tried to sign up to make some counter arguments, but I was unable to post, or even view my profile, for some reason. The posters there also refer to Catholicism as a "cult" (even though more than 50% of Christians are Catholic!) and distinguish Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnessism (or whatever you call them), etc. from "Christianity."

Yet Protestants and Catholics aren't all that different in their core beliefs, though many millions of Protestants think we believe the strangest things...

Is it directed towards the rank and file or the hierarchy?

I make a tremendous distinction between the laity and the Jesuit educated clerics. It's like the lower degrees of Masonry, on the whole good folks who don't have a clear idea what's really goin' on. Only a very small handful at the top are given the BIG picture.

Personally, I don't care about vestments or bread and wine. There are lines in the NT that could justify wearing special clothes (as much as I am sure that the disciples wore standard clothing) and there is no question that One who could create the fabulous complexity of life could somehow transmute food and drink into something more significant (as much as I am certain that it was meant simply as an act of remembrance.)

It's only when INSANE SNAKES start using these differences as cause to destroy other persons and societies that I start to care.