Background for _Vineland_?

[Michael Bailey]

>
> i'm a Protestant as distinct from a Catholic because - among other
> reasons - I was brought up to believe that it's wrong for anybody to
> claim they're infallible - violates Murphy's Law or something...


actually that is probably the main reason.  From that one follow as
the night the day all the other objections.

was thinking about a new Lord's Prayer variation: ...may Thy name be
hallowed, may Thy consensus-based democracy attain legitimacy and grow
in influence, non-violently, via moral suasion, fairness, service, and
resourcefulness...may Thy wisdom prove efficacious both in theory and
practice...

Garry Wills does have some interesting arguments about how the Pope
being infallible doesn't make Catholicism completely unpalatable for
him, but he was raised inside the faith and swallowed that bit along
with a lot of (what I call) the good stuff...