Fran’s Og’s sunday ruminations
With apologies to the Great One.
Mass this morning was Father Assblanket, once again. I use his presence as a sort of a moral barometer of the quality of my week; if I’ve been a particular prick for a lot of it, I get the Right Reverend Assblanket, and if I’ve strived more than usual to do my best, I get Father Brian, who is as good a human as the day is long.
Anyway, today’s gospel was Mark 12. As follows:
1 In the course of his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces,
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seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.
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They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”
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2 He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.
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A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
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Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury.
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For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”
He uses the widow’s pittance to tell us all we should be contributing more to the church. He’s got this grandiose scheme to finish an unfinished space in the back of the church for use as a CCD area etc. No big deal, good idea, right? Wrong. Rather than get a few parishioners to do the work, he’s gotten quotes from contractors (apparently Palumbo Construction, from the sound of it) to the tune of a million and a half bucks.
Mostly for drywall, paint, and ceiling tile.
Apparently, the irony of the first sentence of the reading is utterly lost on him:
1 In the course of his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces,
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seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.
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They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”
(emphasis mine)
He’s made it clear that we as parishioners should be getting second mortgages to finance his project. So far, after a year of whinging about this, he’s been able to get 515 of 2500 people to contribute. Look, assblanket, 20% buy in means 80% opt out. Like the recent elections, this is what I’d liek to call a “message”. the loud, clear message is “I won’t have anything to do with this ignorance”
I’d love to win the lottery, just so I could write this retard a check for the whole amount- on the condition that he ask to be transferred to the poorest church in the diocese, and take a vow of poverty (diocesan priests don’t do this, as a rule) A couple of years of having to work a side gig to put food on the table might do him some good.
The money aspect of The Catholic church really turned me off. I used to go by myself as a child..every Sunday.
When the priest would start speaking about buildig a new multi-million dollar facility
I got turned off. What does god care about the surroundings in which you worship.
The final straw came when the priest got into his pulpit and told us that we should be supporting the communist Governments in Nicaragua and Cuba because he had been there and they were dedicated to helping the poor and stamping out American Imperialism.
I left Father Pinko’s church and haven’t been inside one in at least 20 years.
I go for the people. But it’s harder and harder to ignore the morons.
Don’t feel bad, Og. It’s not just Catholic ministers.
Ever heard of Rev. Ike? He’s a Protestant-ish minister who set up shop in the Washington Heights neighborhood of NYC in the 1960s, I believe. He still has a huge, elaborate cathedral that takes up a whole city block, and then there’s his money green Rolls Royce.
Most of his parishioners reportedly have been lower middle class blue collar working folk; translation: people who needed their money to take care of their families and barely had the 10% tithe that scriptures called for.
So anyway, according to legend, Rev. Ike ALLEGEDLY would sometimes grab fists full of cash from the offering plates and heave the loot into the air, and then tell his congregants “What goes up is the Lord’s and what comes down is Rev. Ike’s!”
He was also quoted once as telling parishioners that “the lack of money” was “the root of all evil.”
Shady comes in all denominations.
You should see the hovels people use for places of worship in third-world countries.
It certainly isn’t about the buildings.
Oh, and that 10% thing? Quite the scam. Look up how the tithe was supposed to be presented in the old testament. Or do a google search. Rather eye-opening. It doesn’t exactly fit the New Testament church in any way, shape or form.
I haven’t attended Mass in over a decade. This is but one of the reasons.