Honestly no. My own traditional Catholic education made me very aware, from a very young age, of the differences and similarities between my own faith, mainstream Christianity, and Judaism. Unlike the majority of protestants who hold that, because of original sin, man is basically evil, Catholic’s hold an entirely different view of the effects of original sin and, like our Jewish brethren, we celebrate the goodness and beauty of man as having been created in the image and likeness of God. Falling somewhere between Jewish and Protestant thought, I have always understood that it is through man’s participation in in God’s grace that he is saved. Therefore both the exercise of man’s free will (emphasized by the Jews) and the gift of Grace (emphasized by Protestants) is necessary for man’s salvation. I have never viewed Christianity as a religion separate from the Jewish tradition because I have always understood my faith to be the completion of that very tradition, wherein the gentiles are brought into covenant with and through the Jews, not replacing the Chosen people but being saved through them.
