It’s not often that Mass makes me angry. Tired, bored and cranky? Yes, especially at my home parish. But angry? No, not often. Today at Saturday Vigil Mass, however, I was so angry that I almost interrupted Mass for the second time ever, the first being when the white smoke that announced a Pope had been chosen emerged.
Mass is supposed to be like, you know, church. Like most churches, they go around the sanctuary and collect offerings.
I’ve been an usher for several years now and that is one of my duties, as is me collecting the offering bag and taking it to the safe. But I never guilt people into giving. That’s their choice to make, not mine. Too bad some people don’t have basic morals nor any sign of common decency.
But I’ve never heard of them letting people sell stuff during Mass. Well, actually, I have. In my home parish, once a year, the same supposed recovering drug addicts show up to beg for money that ostensibly helps get addicted people the help that they need. Those sorts of people are beyond help and they do not deserve any assistance, so any money that one would donate would, in my opinion, go up their noses.
Mass is not supposed to be an hour-long TV commercial and yet, it happens. I can easily tune those snake oil salesmen out, but today? Today was the first time in Mass that I actually wanted to go up, cut the priest’s microphone and call him out in front of the entire congregation. But I, being the coward that I am, I chose silence out of respect, something that he is clearly not worthy of.
No, today was different. It’s my opinion that a visiting priest was allowed to hawk some Catholic-based charity that helps people in needy countries. I am not going to name the charity, and that’s because I don’t want to give them any form of free (or paid) advertising.
This scumbag priest went on a twelve-minute, fourteen-second rant about the charity and about how much money they need.
To make matters worse, he hawked a bunch of Catholic merchandise that was being sold by the main entrance. I kind of liken it to the money changers in the temple that Jesus Christ ransacked. No church should be the place where anything is sold.
Collecting voluntary offerings? Sure, because you can choose whether or not to put money in the basket. No one’s stepping up to the pulpit in an attempt to guilt people into giving the parish the financial support that we so greatly need. It’s right their in the bulletin for all to read: our parish is currently in the red to the tune of roughly $3,000 a week. But still, no one stands up and tries to guilt people. Too bad some people didn’t get the memo.
But what that awful person clearly should never have been made a priest did is this: he played to people’s emotions and may even pulled a little bit of a guilt trip so that people would either flat out donate money to his precious charge or purchase the various merchandise that was available.
Rosaries, crucifixes, you name it. I was proud of my fellow parishioners, however. I watched after turning in the collection bag. I counted a straight procession of 41 people who just walked right past them before a couple of spineless parasites fell for it and gave the priest and his little friends money.
I was able to call out the priest in front of around seven people. I told him, loud enough for the people lingering outside to hear, that that he has no right coming into our parish peddling his wares. I told him that I don’t care about the starving children in whatever countries they supposedly aid. Maybe tell their parents to get a job or something?
I further told him that Mass is not the place to make sales pitches and that people come to Mass for spiritual healing and guidance, not to be guilt-tripped into donating or into purchasing things. He looked shocked that finally, someone stood up to him. Someone recorded my verbal lashing, so it might wind up on someone’s Facebook feed or X profile. Serves him right.
I emailed the parish office with the request that it be forwarded to the head priest next week to politely inform him that I go to Mass for a lot of reasons, but receiving sales pitches is not one of them. In fact, you know what? Here’s what I wrote:
For the first time since I became a Catholic in 2022, I left Mass completely outraged and like I just wasted an hour out of my Saturday. Why? Because Fr. Dan clearly gave permission for us to be guilt-tripped into donating to Cross Catholic Outreach and into purchasing shoddy merchandise that ostensibly goes to said charity.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I come to Mass for spiritual healing and guidance. I come to receive Communion. What I do not go for is to receive a sales pitch, especially one from a visiting priest whose only intention was to not be a priest, but to be a salesman. You know I like Fr. Dan. We showed up at the parish at around the same time. But if he knew about this and allowed it to happen, then he made a poor decision.
I did not appreciate a twelve-minute sales pitch disguised as a homily. How dare any priest be allowed to hijack Mass in the name of monetary gain? I don’t care what the charity or cause is. They can do whatever it is that they do without coming to parish to parish hawking their wares.
What happened today was one big guilt trip. The parishioners were pretty much a captive audience that was forced into listening to some snake oil salesman’s sales pitch. People will likely make donations or they were likely guilted into purchasing various items that they offered for sale. Church is not for that! Mass should never be used to sell anything. Ever!
Please print this out for him so that he can hopefully see what happened. Hopefully, this wasn’t his intent and hopefully, he’ll be very upset about this allowing at our parish.
Shame!
I was able to snap a discreet picture so you can see what a sales-happy priest looks like. What happened a couple of hours before this was published should not have happened. But it did happen. So it is my goal to make sure that it never happens again at our parish. I don’t care about other parishes.
I just want this nonsense to stop! From now on, I will call out every person who comes into our parish to sell anything. I will do so loudly and in front of people. Not only that, but if anyone gets up to the pulpit and starts trying to hawk anything, I will no longer be a coward. When that happens again, and it will, I will, without shame, walk up and cut off the microphone while the person is speaking.
Never try to sell me anything at Mass. Today, I went light on calling out the priest. Next time, I will turn the figurative nuclear key.