Vows of poverty?

Ok.

This really pisses me off.

A lot of people when they read my posts digging into the Catholics think I'm anti-Christian. Well. I'm not. I still consider myself a Christian, and read the Bible several times a week for guidance.

What I am is anti-organized religion of any sort. It's just too full of hypocrites (any church) and I just don't have the stomach for the bullshit anymore.

I do not want a political speech rammed down my throat on Sunday morning. I do not need some dried up octogenarian "interpreting" the scriptures for me. And the one thing I'm totally pissed off at is the clergy always crying poor-mouth.

Let me tell you this. The Catholic parish I belonged to growing up, St. Katherine's in Philadelphia was always crying poor. The entire interior was decorated in imported Italian marble. The rectory was a four-story Victorian mansion. The priests had a cook and butler. I know they weren't eating ground chuck from Save-A-Lot either.

Then the guilt they would use to get people to give more on Sundays too was sickening. They'd have the weekly church bulletin, and in it, (I shit you not) they'd publish every week the names of all the parishioners and how much they contributed each week. Dollars and cents.

While the rector was driving a brand new Cadillac.

People were homeless in my parish and they were eating steak and lobster, driving Caddy's and crying poor on Sunday.

It sickened me then and it pisses me off now.

Here's what set me off this time. Last night at work I'm reading the Monday edition of the Charleston Gazzette. On the OP-ED page they listed several local churches' construction projects and how much they spent.

Did they sped this money on homeless shelters? On shelters for battered women? Soup kitchens? Clothes for homeless kids?

Fuck no.

Here's the list:

St. Timothy's Lutheran church, $4.6 Million on a new edifice over looking Corridor G.

Cross Lanes Baptist, $3 Million expansion, still under construction

The Bible Center just spent 2.6 Million on vacant land and looking to spend another $4 Million to move

The Tabernacle of Praise of Hurricane, $4 million on a new house of worship

Elizabeth Memorial United Methodist Church, $1.2 Million for expansion

Sacred Heart Co-Cathederal, $3 Million on a new stone wing and another $2 million for a parking lot

St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in St. Albans, $1 Million for an addition

Maranatha Fellowship of St. Albans, $2 Million for a sanctuary

You do the math. That's 27.4 MILLION...

On new buildings, edifices and a goddamn parking lot, when right here in West Virginia, down here in McDowell County, there's about twentyfive families still homeless from last years record-breaking floods. They're about to get kicked out of FEMA housing because there's no Federal money left, and the "Faith Based" charities don't have the capitol to help them.

Just 10% of that money would get all those families into new double-wides, but do I see any of these churches lifting a goddamn finger to help?

Talk about sinners and burning in hell.

That's a fucking joke.

Tell me I'm a sinner because I don't go to church? You can stuff all your self-rightious indignation right up your ass, I don't give a fuck what you think.

This shit pisses me off to no end. Just look at the Vatican for Christ's sake. How much do you think the spectacle of the the last few weeks with the new pope and all cost the Catholic church, and they actually have the fucking balls to cry poor mouth?

And you wonder why I don't go to church?

I'm a Christian. Christ died on the cross for my sins. But I'm not going to associate myself with any of this. He told me I should turn the other cheek.

I am.



Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden