If you cannot in good conscience support either major candidate (a view with which I'm entirely in sympathy), but believe you're nevertheless obligated to cast a vote for someone, then you may as well vote for a third party, assuming there is one whose candidate's platform is vaguely palatable.

For whatever it's worth, no serious historian appears to doubt Jesus existed, even if they doubt everything else. And Jesus being a character invented out of whole cloth introduces far more questions than it answers.

How exactly do you mean "doubting the existence of Jesus"?

Doubting Jesus is God? Doubting the veracity of the claims of scripture? Doubting He existed at all?

My best guess is that he was somewhere that had a relic of the the saint.

probably because it requires the use of extraordinary Eucharistic ministers, which most everyone is trying to cut back on

Unfortunately, I've seen no evidence of this is my own diocese.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument it was incorrect phrasing, it doesn't matter for the purposes of a valid absolution.

And you thought it necessary to inform the internet, lest we be ignorant of a stranger's spite?

It is impossible for us (or anyone, really) to say with certainty.

All that can be done is to pray for his soul.

We will be judged as we are found, and therefore must be ready at all times.

For man does not know his time. Like fish caught in an evil net, and like birds which are caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Well... it's obvious BS. So there's that.

This convinces no one who isn't already convinced, because reaching this conclusion requires one to read a load of unsupported and unsupportable assumptions into the text. But I suppose if your starting point is "the text of the Bible has been corrupted" then you can read into it whatever you want to, because any contrary evidence will just be taken as a place where the text is not faithful to the original.

Hm...

Try thinking of the whole Church, both those living on earth and those who have passed, as a large family. Everyone wants what's best for this family. Those of us still here on earth are children and youths in this family. We haven't known God nearly so long as those who are in Heaven.

It's good to ask the Father directly. Nothing wrong with that. But is also good, and can be useful, to ask those who have been around longer and have a better understanding of things to ask about stuff on our behalf. As our elders, they may in fact know better than we do what we need, and the best way to approach things.

Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation [De fide]

In the Creed Caput Firmiter, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared: "There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful outside of which no one at all is saved" (extra quam nullus omnino salvatur). This was also the teaching of the Union Council of Florence, and of the Popes Innocent III, Pope Boniface VIII in the Bull Unam sanctam, Clement VI, Benedict XIV, Piux IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XII in the Encyclical Mystici Corporis. As against modern religious indifferentism, PIus IX declared: "By Faith it is to be firmly held that outside the Apostolic Roman Church none can achieve salvation. This is the only ark of salvation. He who does not enter into it, will perish in the flood. Nevertheless it is to be held as equally certain that those who suffer from ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance should be invincible, are not subject to blame in this matter before the eyes of the Lord." The last proposition holds out the possibility that people who in fact (actu) do not belong to the Church can achieve salvation.

From Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Internal citations to Denzinger omitted).

No. Not even slightly.

Those are the names of the four Evangelists, and the symbols associated with them.

The recommendation given already is good. I would add to that Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.

But a minor correction to your thoughts: "Dogma" doesn't just mean "things I have to believe." Dogma specifically refers to things that are divinely revealed. Doctrine can also be binding. I suspect you're thinking of "prudential judgments," which are opinions concerning what is the best course of action given the state of society. One must give those a fair hearing, but one is not obliged to agree with them.

Yes, that would be Limbo. And it "changed" in the sense that the Church clarified that one is not obliged to believe this is what happens, and may hope that by some means they go to Heaven instead. But one is neither forbidden from believing this. It remains a speculative matter.

Purgatory refers to the place/state those faithful who die in a state of grace but with faults and "debts" from sin find themselves in after death, where the must be purified before they may be admitted into Heaven. This is settled, dogmatic teaching.

Limbo can refer to both the Limbo of the Fathers, where the righteous dead rested before the gates of Heaven were opened by Christ, or to Limbo of Infants, the hypothesized destination of those who die without without being cleansed of original sin, but also without any personal sins of their own. Typically when "Limbo" is used without qualification, it refers to the latter. This is a matter of theological speculation, not settled teaching.

In the early 80’s, was it called purgatory or limbo?

Purgatory and Limbo refer to different things. So "it" was called either one or the other, depending on what was being discussed.

The mass is the principal act of corporate worship undertaken by the faithful, and participation is a matter of obligation. So to abstain from the worship of the Lord and defy the Church's law would decidedly not make one a "good Catholic."

Sort of depends.

The longer obvious contradictions get presented as "developments," the more ingrained the contradiction will become, and the harder it will be to back off from it. Also, since what is taught "always and everywhere" becomes part of the infallible ordinary magisterium, this means that the longer the "new truth" is taught the harder it will be to resolve the problem in a way that passes the giggle test.

If the whole matter is walked back within living memory of those who saw it initiated, it can probably be chalked up to a certain portion of bishops and theologians just being very publicly wrong, and not turned into something that completely undermines the idea of infallible teaching.

I see no reason to suppose it's infallible. But it's certainly a teaching document, which makes the contradiction only somewhat less concerning.

This is one of those unverifiable pious legends. No one is going to be able to give a definite answer one way or the other.

The willingness to completely undermine the coherence of teaching in an effort to make a prudential judgment a moral mandate is unsettling. But at least it will keep apologists in business trying to square the circles without admitting anyone might be in error.

You're not obligated to make anything of it. The fact that he's showing up on EWTN doesn't imbue his experience with additional weight.

Were it me, I'd go "Hm, interesting" and move on.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with, but I have some rollers you can borrow if you're not covering everyone you'd like to.