We have had a couple of priests at our church who have been a little contraversial. Our Pastor is pretty opinionated, and isn't shy about telling everyone what he thinks. Most of the time that seemed to be that we parishioners were not donating enough money. It used to be recognized if you donated TIME, but that kind of fell by the wayside.
He also bugged a bunch of people with closing our parish school (not that my kids went or anything). He saw it as money pit, so he closed it down. A lot of families were not happy with that either.
I actually saw a woman stand up at one point during a mass and yell at Father for a good ten minutes, and then she stormed out and never returned. So, yeah, he bugged some folks.
The other priest came to us pretty soon after he accidentally "married" three people in his former parish. He said it was not a marriage, but a blessing. Still, why would three people need to get a blessing together?
Trevor & Diana served at Mass since they were little. Neither of these two priests seemed to take the time to learn our kids' names, even though they served bi-weekly, if not weekly (filling in for someone who didn't come). I would be surprised if either Father knew my name. Granted, I'm not around all that much outside of Mass, but there are a lot of people that know my name there.
So I guess in June, our Pastor will be moving over to take on administration duties at the Homeless Family shelter he got built with the help of the parish & community. It's a neat thing, and has helped a lot of folks. But they haven't had someone 'in charge' and that's where his heart is - so that's good. The other priest is just going somewhere else. Not sure where yet.
I am hoping our new priests are a little more personal. Both of our current priests have been a little stand-offish, and neither seems to live in *our* world. Our Pastor was apparently pretty rich before he was called to serve the Lord, and I don't think he's ever figured out that this particular parish isn't all that rich. He sees the need for helping the homeless & poor, but if you weren't homeless, he seemed to think you were rich. Oh well.
I would like the new priests to get to know us a bit better as a parish. Not just the people making the big donations. And for crying out loud, learn the names of the people that volunteer at the church!!
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4 comments:
i may not serve at my church but at least everyone knows my name too....i hope he does too... i still need to attend mass when i go back with ya'll since i didnt do it on leave....love nae
OOh. Maybe you can meet the new ones?
I remember you & Mary with the cleaning gloves on your hands & feet, scrubbing the bathrooms to get them ready for Casa de Belen.
So, yeah, you served :)
We sure like our little tiny parish. Everyone knows everyone. We're lucky to have even ONE priest. When the bishop comes around everyone has their family members travel up so we can pad the church a little bit...I'm hoping we can get Fr. Joe down in August to at least co-celebrate. No luck so far though
Yeah, we don't have that problem at all! We don't have a paster though, just the Elders, which is fine with me since we all know them and most are like grandfathers to my kids, well actually one IS a grandfather to my kids! Heehee! One of the others is a great Uncle! And everyone knows everyone! I really like it that way!
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