Something Interesting

...that I have never, ever thought of before. The Archbishop of Baltimore is one of the cardinals who will be voting for the next Pope. There are only nine voting cardinals from the US - and their geographic distribution is probably telling. One on the west coast, one in Chicago, and a whole bunch in the mid-Atlantic/northeast.

I think I was nine before I knew that there were religions besides Catholicism and Judaism (I had a Jewish friend, Debra Salob, in elementary school - her mom used to come to the school once a year to make us potato pancakes and explain Hanukkah and, as a side note, her dad was the dentist for the Washington Capitals. At 6 Debra was tight with a bunch of hockey players. She also got her first set of braces when she was 6. Poor girl - she had some kind of metal in her mouth all the way through high school. Little orthodontical guinea pig). Anyway, even though I went to a Baptist nursery school - and CCD in elementary school - somehow I was under the impression that everyone besides Debra was Catholic like me. All my neighborhood friends were.

Even now, almost all of my friends who are actually originally from Maryland are Catholic. Its especially noticeable around this time in my life, what with all the weddings.

Maryland: Founded as a haven for Catholics (I learned those exact words in fourth grade). Indeed.