I'm definitely not a religious person, and I have a tendency to mistrust religious institutions. But of the Christian denominations, I think of the Catholic church as the steadiest and the least likely to do great harm in the world. As the oldest human institution, its two-millenia perspective gives it patience as well as confidence in the future. It rarely feels threatened by science (notwithstanding events of a few centuries ago) and usually obligingly readjusts itself to make room for scientific discoveries.

Back in 1999, I wrote a whitepaper for the Archdiocese of San Jose about how the Church should be using the Internet. My basic premise was based on the stability and breadth and depth of the Catholic Church, and how it should use the Internet in an ecumenical way, to create a big tent by offering facilities and technical support for other denominations, to create interdenominational resources like online libraries of religious works, and to foster more communication among the denominations. In other words, (and I think I said it explicitly) I advised the Church to work to become the "mother church" again.

The experience of working with officials of the Catholic Church reinforced my generally positive view. Religious people want to know where you stand, what's in your heart, and I was honest with them, conveyed my position something like the first paragraph above. They were fine with that, I didn't have to be a believer to have something to contribute; and they were receptive to assuming the role of supporting and fostering their fellow denominations--no internecine jealousy that I could detect. My overall impression was of a group of people who combined religious faith with the hard-earned pragmatism and experience of a 2,000-year-old institution.

Although the Church doesn't feel threatened by other Christian denominations, they do sometimes feel embarrassed by the antics of some of the more out-there sects. It's that attitude that makes me not at all surprised that the Catholic Church is on the right side of the Creationism debate. They know that some of the perception of whackiness slops over on them and tarnishes their image too, and they don't want that. They have chips on the table and know it.