Not a surprise

I have managed, so far in this blog to stay away from 'controversy'. War, politics, religion. My mother always used to tell me that a lady never discusses such things in mixed company. For the most part I don't think it is a bad idea - my mother's advice - in theory. I really don't want to offend anyone. So my apologies if this does - write to me about it - I will listen with an open mind.

When my love-affair with my husband was in it's heyday (spelling??), we used to publish a 'Zine' together. We used it as a forum for our particular brand of ranting. I had a column entitled 'Through the Looking Glass' and it was about spirituality and our perceptions of how God/Goddess 'should' be and my own take on what I saw as a lot of bad things being done in the name of God. In one of those articles I once asked how many 'Christian' churches would welcome Mary Magdalen today (knowing she was considered a prostitute) - would they love her as a child of God?

I wanted to direct my reader's attention to this article I found. This really disturbed me on many of the same levels I used to write about. Mainly it falls under the 'Who do we humans think we are?' category in my book.


Gay-Rights Activists Denied Communion

Now, I want to say here that I was born and raised a Catholic - I turned away from the church for many reasons (one is listed above, one is below). Today those reasons grow even more glaring. I once asked a priest the proverbial smart-aleck question about God: 'Father, if God were to make a rock so big HE could not lift it...' (what can I say I was (still am) a brat - always question authority LOL). His answer was "God is not bound by man's words"

Today I would like to ask that same priest, (that is if he is not in jail for molesting young children), if God is bound by mens' prejudices? I would certainly hope not!

To quote a favourite Irishman of mine (who was probably a Catholic boy as well in his youth), Bono: "My God's not short on cash, Mister." This quote echoes something else that used to bother me to no end - why was one of the richest churches/organisations in the world always asking poor people like my family, for money??? I mean has anyone seen the art collection at the Vatican? Why not sell something by Michelangelo if you guys are so hard up for cash? I remember the priests in our parish driving better cars than most of the parishioners (ok so they were gifts - possibly - so what?) - at the time we were so poor, my family did not even own a car, my dad had to walk 5 miles to get to work (and not this is not the start of a Monty Python sketch). It just used to irk me. Am I bitter? Perhaps, a little, but I want the place I go to worship to be a place of solace and comfort to me and I have to say I never found that in the Catholic church. Instead, I always used to be made to feel that I wasn't quite right, that I was *gasp* a sinner and unclean.

I am not going to start turning this blog into a soap box of my litanies against a faith I find to be dead and poor in Spirit. I just feel sometimes my truth (at least as I see it), is going to come out. I don't remember thinking as a little girl, when I was reading stories about The Christ, that he was a mean-spirited and intolerant man. That does not sound like the type of God I want to worship.