(Anna and I are sitting in the break room with Carol. Anna is an Evangelical who is aware I am Catholic. Carol is unaware that I am Catholic, as she is of most things, but I do love her dearly.)<\/p>\n
Carol: I spent two years in Austria as a missionary.
Me: That\u2019s great!
Carol: Yeah they had some real problems over there.
Me: Yeah? Are they spiritually dying like the rest of Europe? I thought Austria was still very Catholic.
Carol: Exactly. Like 95% Catholic. Terrible, right?
Me: Uh\u2026right.
(Anna is trying hard not to laugh)
Carol: Yeah, we came to bring the message of the Lord to them.
Me: Oh, those Catholics, they need it brought to them. I\u2019m amazed that they haven\u2019t heard about it before!
Carol: (in enthusiastic agreement) I know! They had shrines everywhere! We tried to stop them, but they din\u2019t seem to understand what they were doing was devil-worship.
Me: (looking at Anna, who knows full well that I am building a shrine in the woods by my house) Stupid Catholics, always building shrines. I bet they were all to that Mary-lady.
Carol: (nods in sage agreement) They\u2019re a very superstitious people.
Me: Totally.
Carol: They had a bush a priest would bless and they would pray to for good harvests.
Me: Who do they think they are, Moses?
(Anna\u2019s face, by this point, is going through drastic contortions to keep from crying.)
Carol: They just didn\u2019t seem to mind what they were doing. Every weekend there were parties for Saints\u2026we tried to talk them out of it, but they would just say yes, yes, Jesus, and keep going.
Me: (I am stunned for a witty response, and run out of the room into the kitchen and start laughing. Carol is very old and a little deaf if that clears up why I got away with that conversation.)<\/p>\n
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