But one of the problems with comparing them to Sondercommandos is that it diverts the conversation toward religion and away from your point about Mukasey.

Because I’ll bet the ensuing conversation below, which I haven’t read yet, is all about Judaism and not about Mukasey.

[Note: My analogy to Cambodia's killing fields wasn't well thought out. What I meant was it was amazing if the Cambodian's survived Pol Pot. Just survived! But, as far as Feinstein and Schumer are concerned, they never experienced WWII death camps. Maybe they had family who did, but they never did themselves. And really it's not relevant to Mukasey.]

Another fun non sequitur, though this one is not quite as good as your Scottish Jews in kilts were.

“So now you’re saying that the Jews even have the right to have their children baptized in the Catholic church.”

And now you are resorting to attributing to me ridiculous statements that I never made in order to make me wrong - a sure sign of desperation. Of course, I have never said any such thing, nor would I say anything that is on its face so completely absurd. Of course Jews do not have the right to have their children baptized in the Catholic church, and I cannot imagine why any Jew would want that any more than a Catholic couple would want a bris or a bar mitzva for their sons.

“..ask them if they went to work on Thursday, November 1, the day after Holloween.”

I don’t have to ask them that because I saw them at work that day, all day.

“Here in Italy, it was a major Catholic (formerly Pagan) holiday called All Soul’s Day and everything was closed up tighter than a drum. You couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread anywhere.”

All it proves is that in Italy All Soul’s Day is a national holiday. It does absolutely nothing for your claim that 90% of Catholics worldwide consider Catholicism an ethnicity and a culture.

if this were a parallel universe and it was jews who were being waterboarded, would she still support this nomineee?

Yes, indeed. All the MORE reason for Diane Feinstein’s mother to practce her Catholic religion and have her daughter baptized. She was NOT in Russia. She was in America where she had the FREEDOM to practice!

Be my guest. Please do ask them. And while you’re at it, also ask them if they went to work on Thursday, November 1, the day after Holloween. Here in Italy, it was a major Catholic (formerly Pagan) holiday called All Soul’s Day and everything was closed up tighter than a drum. You couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread anywhere.

Sorry, Shirin, but there is no “irrespective” whatsoever about this additional erroneous statement of yours. There is NO way on EARTH that a Jewish father and a Jewish mother (by conversion) could have their child baptized in the Catholic church. NO WAY! COME HELL OR HIGH WATER. I THINK YOU’RE MAKING THIS UP AS YOU GO ALONG. REMEMBER, SHIRIN, YOU ARE TALKING TO A CATHOLIC WHO RECEIVED 12 YEARS OF EDUCATION IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS.

1. Whether or not Diane Feinstein’s mother converted to Judaism is completely irrelevant. She would have been baptized in the Catholic faith only if her parents chose to have her baptized in the Catholic faith, and irrespective of whether her mother converted or did not convert to Judaism.

2. The absence of Jewish rites does not guarantee the presence of Catholic rites, regardless of the religious affiliation/background of either parent.

3. Diane Feinstein is Jewish irrespective of the number of Catholic sacraments she may have received as a child if one or more of the following is the case: a) she believes in and practices Judaism, b) any part of her family background is Jewish and she defines herself as a Jew.

There are lots and lots and lots and lots of Catholics and Jews who marry non-Catholics or non-Jews, and who for various reasons do not feel compelled to raise their children in either faith. Religion may just not be all that important to them, or they may consider that their children should be exposed to choices, and allowed to decide for themselves when they are able to.

PS Agnosticism is not the failure to receive some form of religious rites. It is a belief that the existence or non-existence of god is unknown and unknowable. Not everyone considers agnosticism as “dangling”. Some people, including some believers, consider agnosticism a reasonable logical position.

No, I don’t concede that at all. Since you don’t seem to get it, Shirin, here is the bottom line again. If Diane Feinstein’s mother did not convert to Judaism when she married a Jewish man, her child, born in 1933 in the USA, was NOT Jewish because the mother was not a Jew. Therefore, a Catholic baby would have been given the Catholic sacrament of Baptism as there would have been no Jewish rites available for a child born into such circumstances at the time. Do you really believe that the child of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother would just be left dangling as an agnostic? Please, get real.

I am not going to argue with you about Italians, although I WILL ask a couple of Italian-American colleagues whether they consider Catholicism to be their ethnicity and their culture. I DO happen to have known in my life quite a few people who are Catholics or who have a Catholic background, including one relative-by-marriage, and his family with whom I am quite close, and with whom I have attended church services. The people I have known come from a wide variety of nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures. Many of them are from the Middle East. Most of the Catholics I have known would disagree that Catholicism is their ethnicity or their culture.

Once again, you presume to know things about Diane Feinstein’s mother’s mindset and behaviour that you have no way of knowing. You are assuming things, nothing more. But at least you concede that having a Catholic mother does not guarantee that a child will be baptized, and all the rest.

Furthermore, a Catholic child does not automatically receive the sacraments because the mother is a Catholic. The Catholic mother must present the child to the church and do the required amount of Catholic parenting so that the child is ELIGIBLE to receive the Sacraments beginning with Baptism. If Diane Feinstein’s mother did not convert to Judaism upon marrige to a Jew after being advised by her priest NOT to marry a Jew, then she would have been even more attentive to her duties as a Catholic mother and made sure her child received the Sacraments.

No, dear, I am saying the Catholic church does not have any authority over those who choose not to believe in or practice the Catholic religion. I am saying that is the case even for those who were given “Catholic” names by the Catholic church before they were sentient beings, let alone able to make their own decisions. I am saying that is the case even for those who went through communion as children before they were old enough to really understand what they were doing, let alone make their own decisions. I am saying that is the case even for those who were married in the Catholic church. I am saying that is the case no matter how many sacraments they have received.

What I am saying, dear Centrocita, is that the Catholic church has no authority over anyone who does not grant the Catholic church that authority. What I am saying is that this is no longer the Middle Ages, and the Catholic church cannot force a person to be a Catholic, or to accept the authority of the Catholic church. I am saying that wether or not to be Catholic, or to raise one’s children Catholic, is up to the individual person, no matter how many sacraments they have received in the past.

Oh - and your insistence that if someone’s mother is a Catholic it automatically means they have received X number of sacraments is contradicted over and over and over again by reality. This would be particularly true of marriage, which usually takes place after one is an adult and is not required to yield to the dictates of one’s parents.

It doesn’t require any great knowledge about the Catholic faith to know these things, it only requires a tiny bit of common sense, and an understanding of how the world actually works.

And finally, Centrocita, “recognized” as a Jew by whom? What you do not seem to have grasped is that there are many factors that determine whether someone is a Jew or not, of which religion is only one, and a minor one at that. Jewishness is defined by many other things than religion, of which the most important one is ancestry plus self-identification. Diane Feinstein certainly would have been recognized as a Jew in 1933 by the Nazis!