Two Mormons Walk into a Catholic Church

The punchline is: And they had no idea what to do there.

In Santa Fe a lot of the tourist attractions are old Churches and Cathedrals. One we went to was called the St. Francis Cathedral Basilica. It has a HUGE history here in New Mexico. We wanted to tour the local sites and this church was at the top of most lists that we could find online for local attractions.

Here's the thing. I've only been inside a Catholic church once in my entire life. It was for a baby baptism, I was twenty minutes late and I had no idea what was going on the entire time.

I haven't been a Latter Day Saint my entire life. I was exposed to many different religions and churches growing up. My paternal Grandmother always took me to her Baptist church any weekend that I would spend with her. During my teen years, my aunt Debbie was baptised as a reborn Christian and attended a Nazarene Church. I even once dated a guy who went to a Pentecostal church. I've seen and researched many a religions. And I just happen to like mine.

But I've never before had the chance to really walk around a Catholic church and take a good look. Until our vacation. I found a few things odd, or well, different I guess is the right word (so not as to offend - I'm sure a lot of things in my religion are odd to plenty of folk.)

Inside the Cathedral everything was filled with color. Huge ceilings, gold paint, stained glass windows, crosses, angels, banners, paintings of Jesus, Mary and more Saints than I could honestly name. Many people were tourists like us, others had come there to pray, light candles, and there was even a group of children practicing a musical number in a corner of the building. Despite other tourists taking pictures, it felt a little odd to me, so I only got one.

Matt and I tried to remain as quiet as possible. Though we're not Catholic, we try to remain respectful to other religions. A few things confused me though. Now, I'd like to think that if any of my readers or friends had questions about my faith, they would have no problem coming to me and asking openly. I would have no problem answering.

So I have a few questions for some of my Catholic readers (if there are any) - and please, try not to take offense:

- Do you expect everyone to use the holy water and cross themselves when they come in? Cause we didn't know if it was disrespectful not to.
- If priests live their lives for the Church, how come there are only certain hours available for confession? Isn't that like a good majority of what they do?
- Do you pay tithing? If so, what does that money go to? Because at the place where people light the candles, there was a sign that said you had to buy the candles first. I would just assume that if a Church has tithing, that the money would go to something like that. So I'm curious.
- Lastly, one thing actually made me a little uncomfortable... Inside the building, just outside the main doors of the Cathedral, there was a gift shop. It felt I don't know, sacrilegious to see money being exchanged inside a place meant for worship - and it reminded me of Jesus throwing out the money changers in the temple. Is this like a typical thing, or do you think it's mostly because the Cathedral was a tourist attraction?

I'd appreciate any answers to my questions, just for knowledge sake.

Though we were unable to see any of the other Churches (we had planned on checking out several others but ran out of time), we did get to see the prayer garden outside of the Cathedral where they show the stations of the cross. I took a few pictures.