A few months ago, I bitched about a visiting priest saying Mass and used his homily time to beg for money for some Catholic charity or another. Today, Mass was once again hijacked, this time by two supposedly “former” drug addicts who show up every soften to beg for money that supposedly helps drug addicts.
Once again, they wasted eight minutes of my time whining and crying about druggies who need help. As I wrote in that previous article, it should not be our job to reward addicts with money and assistance. They chose to get themselves into that situation to begin with, so they can choose to help themselves, starting with not turning Mass into a commercial.
I am not naming any of the organizations involved as that would be giving them free publicity and people might donate to their cause after reading this article. I will not reward them for their bad choices in life.
Now, make no mistake, I think we have an awesome priest. He showed up to my parish around the same time that I did, back when I was taking lessons to become a Catholic. Four years later, he’s still there, not only at our parish but three others as well thanks to the priest shortage in our diocese.
I do respect him, but I think that he’s making the wrong call by allowing people, any people at all, to come in and distract from the sacred thing that is Mass. What’s next? Are they going to interrupt Mass every five minutes with a commercial break? From a technical point of view, I can make that happen, but that doesn’t mean that it should happen!
What happened today should never happen again, but it will. Over and over and over. People should not interrupt Mass with begging for money. Why is it my fault that some guy chose to do and keep doing drugs? It’s not! Therefore, I should not be expected to reward them.