www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Does God love the Byzantine Catholic Church?

Dan,

You speak with the wisdom of experience.

>Much of Protestantism is built on big promises and very little delivery.<

I read a study somewhere that less than 5% of the people who are "saved" during the Evangelical Protestant crusades actually become practicing Christians. I know that both Catholics and Protestants rate pretty evenly with our general ignorance of Scripture.

>>This has not been my experience in the Byzantine Catholic Church. The setting draws me to worship. I'm not comfortable doing anything else but praying. I immediately go to an icon and venerate it. I'm immediately drawn to worship God. I'm close to tears of joy everytime I enter. I know I'm not being sold a bill of goods. <<

Wonderful. I am reminded of a story that Archbishop Raya related in his introduction to "Byzantine Daily Worship" about someone coming to understand icons:

"One day I was considering a marvelous icon of the Mother of God and reflecting in myself on the childish belief of the people who came to pray before it. Women, old men, the sick, went down on their knees, crossed themselves, prostrated themselves before ti. I fixed my gaze on the holy face. All of a sudden, the secret of its miraculous power became manifest. I no longer had before me a mere painting. In it there had accumulated over many generations the spiritual prayers, the passionate supplications of the disinherited, overwhelmed by evils and hardships; the icon had been saturated with the power of faith which now flows from it to be reflected in the hearts of its supplicants. It had become a living thing where Creature and creatures meet. With these thoughts in mind, I looked again at the women, the old men and the children prostrated in the dust before the holy icon, then I looked back at the icon. The features of the Mother of God suddenly came to life. The gaze of love and piety rested peacefully upon the simple believer's eyes, and I knelt with them all in humble prayer." (Quoted by Msgr. J. Nasrallah, "La Priere dans l'Eglise Orthodoxe")

>>This is what will attract the honest seeker to God: Integrity.<<

Exactly. We have a future in America and it is bright. We simply need to be proud of our inheritance and learn to share it with our neighbors.

Dan, the earliest Christians "mixed" their host culture, that of the Greco-Roman world" with Christianity. For example, even though the first Christians were Jews the Gentiles who became Christians did not become culturally Jewish.

Certainly there is no more to faith than culture, however, we cannot dismiss the link between faith and culture. (See the writings of the Holy Father on this topic.) The reason that we do not worship God (even though we share the same faith) in the exact same way is that we are all from different cultures. When Sts. Cyril and Methodius evangelized the Serbs they "blended" Christianity with Serbian culture. One of the best things about Catholicism is that we do not believe that a culture is intrinsically evil. When Evangelical Protestants evangelize in the third world, essentially, they insist that these people accept American culture because they see all other cultures as "tainted". We don't believe in utter depravity therefore culture is not inherently bad or evil.

Jennifer

I cannot agree with you. What culture were the Earliest Christians drawn into? What culture are pagans drawn into? Culture is nice but there is more to faith than culture.

Dan Lauffer[/b]

Even though the United States has no history of a particular Church, we are still a western society. Americans, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, have been inculturated into western culture. If we embrace eastern Christianity we reject our host culture (even though it isn't Catholic). This is why the Roman Catholic Church encourages Protestants to convert to Roman Catholicism instead of Eastern Catholicism. Not out of any kind of bigotry. The Church understands that the most of us express our faith in a way that is consistent with our culture and that culture in and of itself is not "bad". The Church knows that the faith will be meaningful to us if expressed in a way that is consistent with our culture.

Jennifer

You misunderstand. The Church believes that there is a very strong link between faith and culture and that culture (even if pagan) is not bad. Therefore people are evangelized in a way that is meaningful to them, i.e. consistent with their culture. Therefore, the Church, in her wisdom, believes that Protestants should be evangelized by Roman Catholicism as opposed to Eastern Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is consistent with their western culture.

To answer your questions:
1) The United States is a society based on western culture and the vast majority of us have been inculturated into that culture. Our political system is based on the enlightenment which is a development of the Catholic philosophy of the middle ages. St. Augustine has had a huge impact on our culture, even though we are always aware of his influence. America, even though Protestant, is the philosophical descendent of the western Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. Therefore, our culture is much more 'consistent' with Roman Cathoicism than with an eastern expression of Catholicism.

2) Byzantine Catholicism is not inconsistent with Americans inculturated in Eastern European culture. However, for the majority of us, embracing Eastern Catholicism means rejecting our host culture therefore it must be 'inconsistent'.

When the early Christians evangelized the Greeks and the Romans of the first few centuries they did not demand that they reject their culture. They attempted to make the cultures consistent with one another. A Greek who converted to Catholicism did not cease to be Greek and become Jewish. He was 'more' Greek than he was before. God allows for different cultures because this things are used to bring people to God. Man, even without the Church, has the ability to know that God exists. Man creates cultures and traditions and these things are not "bad" or "evil" because they are mankind's way of trying to know the world. Then when these cultures are 'meshed' with the truth (Catholicism), they are brought to their fullest expression.

We live in a time of cultural "flux". In a stable time, people would not "switch" from one culture to another. Things will become more calm in the future.

The Eastern Catholic Churches should not be "abolished". In this time of cultural flux, we shouldn't expect things to be as ideal as they normally are. No one should be "expelled". We're not talking about using the force of law to enforce anything here. However, we should recognize the linke between faith and culture. For example, do we believe that the Russian Old Believers are "fair game" because they are no longer Orthodox? Clearly not. They are the inheritors of Russian culture and Russian culture and Orthodoxy are linked at a very fundamental level therefore they should be evangelized by Russian Orthodox and not Roman Catholics.

My point is not to criticize westerners who become Eastern Catholic or Orthodox. However, in so doing you must be cognizant of what you are doing, rejecting your host culture and accepting an alternate culture. And you should also be aware that this mindset (rejecting host culture and choosing a culture that we prefer) could spell the end of Eastern Catholicism in the United States. What's to prevent all of the Eastern Catholic children in the United States from choosing Roman Catholicism because they "prefer" it. This is why the Church discourages "preferences" like this. The Church knows that this destablizes culture and weakens the link between faith and culture.

I disagree. By this reasoning I should be a Protestant since I was born in America, as were my parents. While numerous faith contributions have contributed to our American culture one must acknowledge that it is built on an Anglo-Saxon Protestant foundation since they made up the vast majority of our founding fathers. Even if one buys into this argument two questions immediately arise: 1) How is Roman Catholicism more "consistent" with our American culture than is Byzantine Catholicism? [if it were not for the misguided "Americanist" Archbishop John Ireland and his ilk there would still be a much greater ethnic content in Roman Catholicism in this country] and 2) If one considers Roman Catholicism is "consistent" with our culture, must one then conclude that Byzantine Catholicism is not consistent with our culture? If so, then should it be abolished? If yes, why? If no, why not? A logical extension of this argument would also be to conclude that Orthodoxy has no place in American culture. Taking this a bit further, should one then seek to stop Roman Catholics from their active evangelism in Ukraine and Russia? Or expel Roman Catholics from the Mid-East and India where they have historically sought to overtake the local Eastern Christian Church. See the can of worms this argument opens?

Eastern Catholicism cannot exist in a vacuum just as Roman Catholicism cannot exist in a vacuum. You can't sever the link between faith and culture because the the primary reason that there different expressions of catholicism is culture. In the early Church, people did not become Greek Orthodox because they "preferred" it. The Fathers didn't "create" a particular faith tradition out of preference. They harmonized Christianty with their own culture. Therefore the "lungs" of Catholicism developed out of culture. Therefore it is not organic to separate faith and culture.

Clearly anyone can become Catholic. However, a Buddist living in China should be evanglized in a way that is consistent with their culture. And they should probably have a rite that is also consistent with their culture.

<<Curious. Are you saying that Eastern Catholicism cannot exist apart from the ethnic culture of our spiritual ancestors? Or that one raised a Buddhist in Asia can never really become any type of Catholic? If so, than I seriously disagree. But I think I am just missing your point.>>

Yes, this is a problem, however, do you see the inconsistency between telling third generation Slavs that they must remain Eastern Catholic, i.e. can't choose the tradition they "prefer", while at the same time telling Roman Catholics that they can "prefer" Eastern Catholicism? Do only westerners get to "choose"?

BTW, why do you believe that Byzantine Catholicism "speaks more" to Americans than Roman Catholicism? All protestants are the spiritual descendents of Roman Catholicism. Most of them have been significantly influenced by St. Augustine. Their views on salvation are much more consistent with the Roman Catholic understanding.

Personally I believe that one of the signs that our culture is disintegrating is that Americans so casually reject who they are. There seems to be somewhat of a 'death-wish' at work here. The pope has called for us to "reinvigorate" western culture. Those of us who are western should follow his lead.

<<Actually, if there is such a thing as a "death knell" for Eastern Catholics (which I disagree with) it is that we mistakenly raised a generation to be Catholic first, Byzantine second. Our leaders of that era thought they were buying acceptance from the Roman Catholics but no Church who looks to another for its self worth deserves to survive. Our Church faces many problems; the largest being that in the geographic areas in which our church was strongest the young people have fled because of economic circumstances. The people who remain are the older ones who built our parishes. We have chosen to be content with a caretaker role rather than to start evangelizing. This will change, as there is now a solid but small younger group of Byzantine Catholics on which to build a new foundation from which to evangelize. I, for one, believe that our Byzantine Catholic tradition speaks more to the peoples of America than does the Roman Catholic tradition. But even when we act to evangelize we still have the responsibility of caring for our older folk in the areas where parishes cannot financially survive (the Romans and other churches have this same problem).

>If we allow Roman Catholics to choose to reject their culture and embrace the culture that they prefer (as I said, nothing is more western than this kind of a choice), then how we can we not expect Eastern Catholics to make the same kind of choice?<

Agreed. Sometimes the Spirit leads people; sometimes they make their own way for other reasons. People often just simply want to belong to the majority Church where no one asks questions. Others simply come to find a home in a Church different from the one they were raised in.

>>And because being "western" is not quite as counter-cultural for people living in the US, then it stands to reason that the traffic will always be more towards Roman Cathoicism as opposed to Eastern Catholicism. <<

Substitute "larger" for "western" and I will agree, but only to a point. Our major problem is our poor witness of our faith.[/B][/QUOTE]

Dan, it's culture that is important not ethnicity. A child who was ethnically Asian but was raised in French culture is culturally French.

I really think that our long suit is integrity. Much of Protestantism is built on big promises and very little delivery. Look at how the Romans have so often compromised in order to fit in. We have a spirituality that is deep and powerful and unrelated to our ethnicity.

Anecdotaly when I pastored United Methodist Churches I never felt comfortable doing any kind of serious prayer upon entering the sanctuary. The few times I tried I was criticized for making a show of my piety. People have a viceral reaction against the advertizing hype of our society but what else can a Protestant church offer?

This has not been my experience in the Byzantine Catholic Church. The setting draws me to worship. I'm not comfortable doing anything else but praying. I immediately go to an icon and venerate it. I'm immediately drawn to worship God. I'm close to tears of joy everytime I enter. I know I'm not being sold a bill of goods.

This is what will attract the honest seeker to God: Integrity.

Dan Lauffer[/b]

[/B][/QUOTE]

Glory to Jesus Christ.

Dear Jennifer,

Our political system is based on the Enlightenment, which is a development of the Catholic philosophy of the Middle Ages.

A development or a corruption? The sincere traditional Roman Catholic will say the second, while the both the liberal follower of the Enlightenment (the secular humanist) and the Orthodox critic and rejecter of it, like the late Fr Seraphim (Rose), will say the first. Hardline Orthodox critics of the West like him say that Protestantism and secularism are the things that hatched from the egg of medieval scholasticism! (Which may be at least partly true... )

Moose wrote:

I disagree. By this reasoning I should be a Protestant since I was born in America, as were my parents.

You�re right that this is wrong, Moose.

Jennifer, you wrote:

My point is not to criticize westerners who become Eastern Catholic or Orthodox.

But you are.

<A HREF="http://oldworldrus.com">Old World Rus�</A>

I think we have a "via media" here that best represents the Church's understanding of culture and spiritual patrimony.

First of all, history and Tradition leave it unclear as to if ritual pluralism endures over time. In the past, where Catholics of different patrimonies lives in the same geogprahic place, they beonged to differnet social groups. The U.S. Ruthenian situation is unique along with maybe the Hungarian Greek Catholics who are now almost completely magyerized, though still have their own villages and towns for the most part. However, as the Ruthenians have assimilated into American culture, our Metropolia continues to decline in number. It will take another generation before we can say if this experiment has failed or not. It certain appears to be failing in Canada.

But I think it might be too extreme to suggest that social culture and religious patrimony are one and the same thing. When I was young, I was told a Catholic has the rite of the priest who converts him. This may be a little clericalist, but the principle is sound -- your Christian patrimony is that of the Christian community from which you received the faith. For most people that is their parents. For adult converts it would be the community which evangelizes them. Prior to evangelization one did not have an understanding of the Christian faith and therefore no Xian patrimony. After evangelization, one has the patrimony of the community which taught him or her the Christian faith. Remember Christ has chosen you, not you Christ. And Christ chooses you through other people.

Now, given all of that, the Catholic Church has clearly stated that change of rite by an adult in non-normative. Exceptional situatio exist for a change of rite: migration to a locale where one rite of birth does not exist, marriage, clergy changing rite because of a serious pastoral need, etc.

While canonically one can leave one patrimony and adopt another, it is difficult to suggest in fact anyone sheds a ritual patrimony one was raised in. transritual Catholics are in fact "bi-ritual" laypersons. ( I recall a poster I think on this list who had 16 years on instrution in Roman Catholic schools and a few years of Roman seminary claim "WE Byzantine have no understanding of the Latins..." Now that was just silly.

Bevertheless, the all Catholics have a duty to evanglize the unchurched and we Byzantines are not exempt. Some inthis forum might find it odd, but I know of some excellent converts who really were not drawn the the Ruthenian Church by any interest in our externals or ritual or "smells & bells" but were asked to come to church my a member a found a warm and caring Christian fellowship that opened their eyes to Christ.

K.

Jennifer, Dan, Rusnak, et. al.,

IMHO, there is no such thing as �American culture�. Rather, America consists of a zillion sub-cultures, none of which has anything near the richness and depth that a culture requires. The dominant technological-industrial presence could care less about �culture� and is completely removed from any prior Protestant or medieval or Enlightenment culture.

I would also contend that one reason people are attracted to �culture-rich� churches is precisely because they are not grounded in anything substantial today and hunger for the richness which these churches provide. There is no prior culture to be unlearned, only the new one to be imbibed. Certainly old habits and old ways of thinking need to be modified in light of the new faith and new culture, but there is no full culture that needs to be uprooted.

In Christ,
Steven

>>>Remember Christ has chosen you, not you Christ. And Christ chooses you through other people.

Kurt, I think you err here. Christ chose all of us. We have to respond. And it's OUR choice to respond. And when we have a choice between different Christian "patrimonies" we can choose as we please. Whether we adopt the culture of the group we join completely rests on the individual, which is where you err again by claiming that those who are "transritualists" cannot fully give up their old ways (I dispute that vehemently: some do, some don't).

>>>Now, given all of that, the Catholic Church has clearly stated that change of rite by an adult in non-normative. Exceptional situatio exist for a change of rite: migration to a locale where one rite of birth does not exist, marriage, clergy changing rite because of a serious pastoral need, etc.

Response: Don't forget "for a spiritual benefit" Many people DO get a spiritual benefit out of adopting a new "patrimony".

>>>While canonically one can leave one patrimony and adopt another, it is difficult to suggest in fact anyone sheds a ritual patrimony one was raised in.

Response: No, it's not, Kurt. You are stating your personal opinion, attempting to back it up with secular sociolgy, and think that you are stating fact. Some do give it up, some don't. We're all different.

>>>transritual Catholics are in fact "bi-ritual" laypersons.

Ha! That's a laugh. You actually mean to tell me that you think that there is no such thing as someone who ceases all attnedance at a Western Church, adopts all Byzantine devotions, and adopts an eastern outlook/pheroma? What you are doing is suggesting that an enculturation in youth permanently forces someone to stay in that culture. Well you're simply wrong. Some people COMPLETELY change. A secular example is one of my bosses. he is Indian, born there, etc. but you could never tell it. He listens to opera, works as management at IBM, drives a Lexus, listens to Classic Rock, and doesn't have one shred of Indian things in his home. he's married to a white woman and is an American 100%.

>>> I recall a poster I think on this list who had 16 years on instrution in Roman Catholic schools and a few years of Roman seminary claim "WE Byzantine have no understanding of the Latins..." Now that was just silly.

Maybe not. If he is a Byzantine Christian, he is a Byzantine Christian. Doesn't matter where he came from, or if it was in the beginning or middle or end of life.

I just don't buy your mix of pop secular sociology and Christianity.

anastasios

Glory to Jesus Christ.

Kurt,

However, as the Ruthenians have assimilated into American culture, our Metropolia continues to decline in number. It will take another generation before we can say if this experiment has failed or not. It certain appears to be failing in Canada.

I�d like to see numbers/a second source for this info.

the Catholic Church has clearly stated that change of rite by an adult in non-normative. (...)

You and I know that, as much as you don�t like the �transritualists� (as you�ve named them) coming into your Church, the restrictions on changing Churches (formerly called rites) exist now mainly to protect the Byzantines in places like the US from being swallowed up by the Romans.

While canonically one can leave one patrimony and adopt another, it is difficult to suggest in fact anyone sheds a ritual patrimony one was raised in. Transritual Catholics are in fact "bi-ritual" laypersons. (I recall a poster I think on this list who had 16 years on instrution in Roman Catholic schools and a few years of Roman seminary claim "WE Byzantine have no understanding of the Latins..." Now that was just silly.

You have a point, but your contempt for �transritualists� is just as wrong.

Steven,

I agree with you +/-100%. You made several excellent points. We�re loosely based on English culture (hence the language of our posts) but not a full-fledged culture ultimately rooted in medieval Roman Catholicism like England is.

<A HREF="http://oldworldrus.com">Old World Rus�</A>

Yes, 'corruption' would be a better term than 'development' using Cardinal Newman's definition of 'development'.

BTW, I'm not "criticizing" westerners who become Eastern Catholic or Orthodox. Perhaps what they did was right for them. However, we mustn't gloss over what actually occurs when this happens. A westerner rejects their native culture for another culture something that the Church in general cautions against. Now the Church in her wisdom never forbids this however she encourages us to find an expression of catholicism that is consistent with our culture.

Jennifer

<<A development or a corruption? The sincere traditional Roman Catholic will say the second, while the both the liberal follower of the Enlightenment (the secular humanist) and the Orthodox critic and rejecter of it, like the late Fr Seraphim (Rose), will say the first. Hardline Orthodox critics of the West like him say that Protestantism and secularism are the things that hatched from the egg of medieval scholasticism! (Which may be at least partly true... )>>

Kurt, I agree. Those of us who were raised in Roman Catholicism will always be Roman Catholic. But Protestants have learned aspects of the faith. Protestantism contains elements of the truth. And what they have of the truth comes from the Roman Catholic Church. For example, they believe in baptism because they have the Augustinian idea of original sin. Therefore, they are at heart western Christians too. And therefore share the patrimony of the western Church as opposed to the eastern Church.

Jennifer


<<But I think it might be too extreme to suggest that social culture and religious patrimony are one and the same thing. When I was young, I was told a Catholic has the rite of the priest who converts him. This may be a little clericalist, but the principle is sound -- your Christian patrimony is that of the Christian community from which you received the faith.>>

Stephen, good point. As I wrote earlier, there seems to be a cultural death-wish in America today in that so many people want to adopt non-western cultures. However, I disagree that we are "culture-less". IMHO, it would impossible for a group of people to be without a culture. I think that our culture appears to be so substanceless that what seems to be non-existent is merely void of meaning.

Jennifer

<<I would also contend that one reason people are attracted to �culture-rich� churches is precisely because they are not grounded in anything substantial today and hunger for the richness which these churches provide. There is no prior culture to be unlearned, only the new one to be imbibed. Certainly old habits and old ways of thinking need to be modified in light of the new faith and new culture, but there is no full culture that needs to be uprooted.>>

In Christ,
Steven[/B][/QUOTE]

Jennifer,

Just wondering - did the people of the Kievan Rus' reject their culture when they embraced the Faith?

Seems to me that the embrace of true Christianity of any sort implies a rejection of certain cultural norms, but it doesn't remove the person from presence in and interaction with that culture.

Sometimes I find it hard to figure out which "culture" I should claim to belong to. (Not that I lose much sleep over it.) My paperwork (which can't be located) says I'm officially Byzantine Catholic. Half my grandparents came from the Carpathians. The other two from Germany and Lithuania. Every one of them were Jews. My parents were Jewish. I was born Jewish, in Ohio. I'm an adult convert. Do I belong to the East or the West? Does it really matter? My faith is in Jesus Christ.

Sharon


Sharon Mech, SFO
Cantor & sinner
sharon@cmhc.com

But can you not see that the concept of "choosing" a patrimony is fundamentally western? Frankly, it's something that we do only because we are American people living in the time we live in. Our idea of religion is based upon the enlightenment. We believe in "freedom of religion". We are horrified by the Inquisition. We cannot understand why anyone would persecute someone else because of his/her religion. Religion to us is a choice. We choose the parish we like. We choose the "flavor" of religion that we like. This idea would have been foreign to our ancestors whether they were Eastern Catholic or Roman Catholic. Given that the concept of "choice" is western to its core it is odd that we would "choose" to be eastern and think ourselves truly eastern.

Given that our choice to become eastern is a fundamentally western action in and of itself, how can we ever truly be eastern? If I'm only eastern because I was western enough to choose eastern Christianty am I truly eastern? Aside from this, however, I truly doubt that any of us raised in the western Church can ever truly shed our latin Catholic heritage. And if we make an attempt to "rebel" against it, it still defines us. For example, if my mother wanted me to go to law school and I didn't go because I wanted to prove my independence, how independent am I really from my mother's influence?

<<And when we have a choice between different Christian "patrimonies" we can choose as we please. Whether we adopt the culture of the group we join completely rests on the individual, which is where you err again by claiming that those who are "transritualists" cannot fully give up their old ways (I dispute that vehemently: some do, some don't).

I'm sure that do get a "spiritual benefit" when they adopt a different religion but we cannot forget that the very idea of "acquiring" spiritual benefit by picking a religious expression that appeals to us is western and secular. There's an individualism at heart here that is somewhat opposed to a traditional mind-set. "I can choose what I like" would have sounded very strange to the Catholics of eastern or western Europe a century ago. They had a much more collective way of looking at things. They saw themselves much more connected to their neighbors and family than we do. 20th century man is an island but the man of the middle ages was not an "island". He was an integral part of a complex society and if he became a heretic, his apostasy would have caused riples throughout this very cohesive society. His actions could have led to punishment by the State. We, being westerners of the 21st century, see this in terms of "rights". We would say that he had every right to believe whatever he wanted to and that whatever he believed was none of our business.

As you can see, our worldview is fundamentally diferent form that of catholics in the past which is why we should be very suspicious of this "choosing the flavor of religion that I like" idea.

<<Response: Don't forget "for a spiritual benefit" Many people DO get a spiritual benefit out of adopting a new "patrimony".>>

Read what the Holy Father has written on the connection between faith and culture. Kurt's opinions are not "secular". BTW, we are not like the fundamentalist Protestants who reject psychology.

<<Response: No, it's not, Kurt. You are stating your personal opinion, attempting to back it up with secular sociolgy, and think that you are stating fact. Some do give it up, some don't. We're all different.>>

What washes "westnerism" off? Tide with Bleach? Someone who makes a deliberate decision to no longer attend a western church in order to attend an eastern church in order to be eastern is still fundamentally defined by the western church they reject. We don't make deliberate decisions to avoid things that do not affect us. The eastern Catholic who attends the eastern Catholic Church has not made a deliberate decision to no longer attend a Roman Catholic church hence the RC church has little to no influence on them.

Furthermore, we cannot erase the things that we've learned throughout our lives. Scientists now believe that our life experiences can actually change brain chemistry. People who experience profound stress during childhood (such as abuse) has a brain that is physically different from people that have not experience that trauma. They are more prone to mental illnesses like depression. That person will always be a survivor of childhood abuse and they cannot make a decision to not be a survivor anymore. The same would apply to all other childhood experiences.

BTW, I've known people like your boss and even though they worked very hard at being American they always felt like outsiders. Things that came easy to us were difficult for them. BTW, you and I don't have to work hard at being Americans. We instinctively know how to be American because we were inculturated in American culture. Your boss had to make a deliberate decision to be American.

Jennifer

<<Ha! That's a laugh. You actually mean to tell me that you think that there is no such thing as someone who ceases all attnedance at a Western Church, adopts all Byzantine devotions, and adopts an eastern outlook/pheroma? What you are doing is suggesting that an enculturation in youth permanently forces someone to stay in that culture. Well you're simply wrong. Some people COMPLETELY change. A secular example is one of my bosses. he is Indian, born there, etc. but you could never tell it. He listens to opera, works as management at IBM, drives a Lexus, listens to Classic Rock, and doesn't have one shred of Indian things in his home. he's married to a white woman and is an American 100%.>>