Week 3 preview of St. Joseph's Catholic Church

Hey Folks!

It's that time again! I know it is late notice but it is time for this week's pick of the faiths, this week I am heeding the call of the Catholics! The parish of choice, St. Joseph's. It was a last minute change from St. James' Catholic Church because I will again be sharing attendance of this fine Sunday mass with my dear friend Chad, who is also blogging (which ) about our adventures in faith here. Honestly, Chad would be the expert here as we was once an active Catholic after leaving the Mormon faith years ago and now, like me, has opted out of all religions and is an atheist. We were planning on attending His home parish from when he was an active member but we have mutually decided that it would e better to attend a church with which he has no ties as there would have undoubtedly been very awkward encounters with members who would recognize him. It may be more conducive to our research if we were not to make any scenes or attract any extra attention to ourselves.

Admittedly, I don't know much about the catholic church. I have only a rudimentary knowledge of some of the ceremony associated with it and of its leadership. This is of course a good thing because the purpose of this project is for me to expose myself to realms of different philosophies unfamiliar  to me. It is not enough for me to just read and hear about peoples' beliefs. My goal is to experience them and to see what it is that members see, think and feel. The very little understanding I have about this church is largely from the media and brief to lengthy stories from Chad. I think my next project will be to undergo the 9 month training classes to become a Catholic. What do you think? Feel free to leave me a comment, should I convert to Catholicism?

Anyway, this is what I know:

I know that (of course we all know this from the media) that the catholic church has been involved with many child sex abuse scandals over the years (Which will not be the focus of this blog). I also know that the Roman Catholic church shares the honor of the longest running and oldest Christian Churches in the world with the Eastern Orthodox Church. That is pretty much the extent of what I know but I am hoping to expand upon that more productively.

As for the church I will visit tomorrow, St. Joseph's is one of the most prominent, church's here in the state of Utah. It is also one of the (if not THE most) traditional Catholic masses in the state. I am looking forward to stepping back in time and witnessing how ceremonies were conducted over a thousand years ago, this is going to be a good one!