THAT LURCH IN CHURCH
Memo to his Holiness:
As one clergyman to another, I offer you what I hope and pray is a sagacious piece of advice. Cool it on global warning! Wouldn’t you agree that there are more important things on your agenda than global warming, in that a significant percentage of Catholics in this country don’t believe that global warming is caused by human activity?
If you truly wish to address climate change, there are ample areas concerning the church that you can speak about: how about climate change within the church? Why not reassure your flock that it is no longer business as usual with clergy who can’t seem to control themselves? Why not let church goers know that while clergy is encouraged to be friendly, church hierarchy will purge the church from all clergy who become over friendly with the laity, if you catch my drift. If you need me to be more explicit, assuage people’s fears that there will be no more lurch in church.
Why not go where every declared political candidate for 2016 has not yet dared, nor is ever likely to go? Instead of solving a problem that a goodly number of Christians claim do not exist, why not solve to seek problems that few, if any Christians are even aware of? Since the Native American Indian (Aboriginal Canadian, north of the border) has been wrong time and time again, first by the well-meaning church, later to be followed by inept government officials, why not announce to the world, that nuns and priests will be sent to work with people whose property has been purloined by those inured with Christian love? I know this sounds radical, but nuns and priests can be trained to realize how Christianity was foisted upon (you should forgive the expression) these savages (your labeling not mine) and how our behavior toward them went from unconscionable to unfathomable. Provided your clergy don’t blather on Sunday mornings as they are wont to do, you’ll be helping the environment as well as sparing it from noxious gases.
I know that this is the epitome of chutzpa, but to the best of my knowledge Jesus never fretted about the ecology. Ecology was left to the book of Leviticus. But having mentioned Jesus, I’m sure that if he ever did exist, he would have been among the first to decry the inhumanities visited upon Christian Palestinians by Muslim Palestinians. Unlike you, Your Holiness, who finds the time to bootlick Mahmoud Abbas and call him an angel of peace, not only would Jesus have invoked Luke 23:34 by exclaiming “Father, forgive them for they know not what they’re doing,” but Jesus would have had the “intestinal fortitude” to decry you as well as what passes for Palestinian leadership. You want climate change? Then how about acknowledging that the church will now adopt a climate of sincerity and candor, so that your millions of followers will truly be able to walk through the doors of your churches in good faith?
