robreynolds2 wrote:...(Sorry if I am sounding preachy)...
Not at all! Well, maybe a little...
I don't mind though - some very good suggestions in there. The fact is that in my case nothing is likely to work. My family are partilcularly religious and follow very traditionalist lines of RC teaching. My upbringing was gold plated Catholic - literally, I had a set of "miracle gold-plated" rosary beads, and we used to kneel down and meditate on the mysteries of the holy rosary as a family.
Also, we had friends in Opus Dei and used to visit their "lay houses", and used to pray to the founder, Jose-Maria Escriva. Actually we were encouraged to pray to the whole multi-deistic pantheon of catholic demigods - Padre Pio, Saint Anthony, Ignatius Loyola, St. Joseph et al. And the "many-arms-of-vishnu" style versions of the big two: Jesus and the BVM (e.g. the Sacred Heart, the Divine Mercy, Christ the King / Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Knock, Our Lady of Medjugorje). Everybody, it seems, except the top man himself...
Plus my mother has over the years been involved in pretty much every far out fringe catholic group available: Medjugorje, The Magnificat Meal Movement, the Society of St. Paul X... We visited Knock Shrine every year and even went to a Catholic "Glastonbury" style festival there one year where Mother Teresa literally arrived in a helicopter and did a stand up gig on stage (except it was all guilt, sin and women are worth nothing unless they're having babies

). Which I always thought was a bit rich coming from an arch-atheist like MT (not that my family could see that!).
I guess my point is, I will lose all contact with my whole family if they ever find out. And they will probably never have peace of mind again, so it would be hurting them as well as me. There is bound to be a confrontation soon, my mother just recently asked me:
"So have you started teaching the little one about Holy God yet?".
*shudder*