And the problem, Mark, is that most Catholics have no more than an elementary school understanding of their religion. Before Vatican II (1962-65), "catechism class" in Catholic schools involved the memorization of questions and answers; and Catholicism seemed to me to be a series of mathematical formulas. Now that I've had eight years of seminary and a lifetime behind me, I understand all that stuff and it makes sense - but most Catholics have never had the opportunity to makes sense out of it. You can't teach Thomas Aquinas to grade school kids - but you will find that Thomas was amazingly rational and balanced, and compatible at all times with Catholic teaching.

I've been a catechist since 1966, teaching religion almost continuously through all those years. Much of religious faith is an abstraction, expressed in languages like philosophy and poetry and myth, that most people don't understand. It's been a constant struggle for me to teach religion and be understood correctly, and there have been many times that I have been misunderstood. Sometimes, I have been condemned as a heretic by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about. I've found that storytelling is probably my best catechetical tool, even with adults. Hey, that's the method Jesus used - he didn't bother much with doctrine, although doctrine can be academically interesting.

By the way, Pope Benedict recently invalidated the idea of limbo completely. It never was official teaching, although I concede that it was in a lot of books that shouldn't have had it.

-Joe-