May 30th 2024
I was raised as what I would call a half-ass Catholic in the 1950s, and 60’s until we became fed up with
the church and decided we did not need them to get to heaven. This came after a grandmother at a very
early age taught me how other religions had an easier time getting to heaven because they did not know
any better. OK Grandmaw, let’s be another religion. Oops… Too Late! No…Too Soon!
My mother was divorced when I was two years old, remarrying with the new hubby adopting me. When I
was old enough for school, my grandmother and Mother tried to get me into a Catholic school. The Priest
came to my grandmother’s house and said if we could buy a bus and pay a driver to pick me up, I could
attend. More importantly, my mother felt like the Priest treated her like a Whore. This was before they got
SCOTUS to violate church and state and force taxpayers to pick up Catholic kids and take them to their
private schools.
Therefore, I did not go to Catholic school, but it probably had more to do with my father (not the sperm
donor or baby daddy; he never paid for anything.) I am dead sure my adopted father did not want to pay
any tuition for me to attend a Catholic school. Sometimes you just get lucky. Public school was great.
Moving forward, I attended Catholic Catechism one night or on a Saturday per week. This continued, and
I made my First Communion. The classes were then oriented toward preparation for the next Sacrament,
Confirmation. I missed too many classes as they did not allow me to go through the Confirmation
Sacrament. Again, some days, you just get lucky.
Around this time, we Attended ‘Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Farmington, MI, which now may be
Farmington Hills, but it may be located in the city of Farmington. This was the 60s with booming suburbs.
So many people were trying to get to heaven, but there were not enough pews for all of them. This was
not a tiny church; they stood in the aisles during services, trying to reach heaven. Therefore, they set up
another parish but did not have a church built yet. They had services in Knights of Columbus Hall until
they finished building Saint Alexanders in Farmington Hills, MI.
In these services at the Knights of Columbus hall every week, they pushed raffle tickets for a free trip to
Hawaii. ‘Be sure to buy your tickets on the way out of church.’ Over time, they acquired the funds and
built the new church. Before moving into the new church, they announced the raffle winner for the free
trip to Hawaii.
THE HEAD PRIEST OF THE CHURCH WON THE FREE TRIP TO HAWAII!!
Darn! Some days, you just get lucky with coincidence.
Perhaps rigging a raffle for the Priest does not violate ‘bearing false witness.’ My mother would put a
couple of dollars in the collection every week; we were not wealthy. Shortly after that, we moved into the
new church. We soon got a letter from the church saying they were removing us from the parish roster as
we did not have enough funds for the church collection. Man doesn’t live by bread alone. My mother was
incensed. She said they built a mansion for a rectory. While it was not 10% of our income, it should have
been enough.
After this, we did not attend the Catholic church much anymore except for funerals and weddings. Along
the way, my mother took a lot of guff from her family as she was divorced and excommunicated from the
church. If you are excommunicated, you can attend church but not receive communion.
One Sunday at mass, my mother’s sister’s husband received communion. After church, I asked my
mother why he could receive communion, as he was also divorced. She replied they met with the church
priest and donated significantly to the church. That way, he could bypass the ex-communion rules and
receive communion at the services. I did not have to ask; I knew my mother would not do such a thing. It
is simply stupid; you cannot be absolved from sin by donations to the church!
The Catholic rules for divorced people were that you were excommunicated until the guy or gal you
married died. My mother followed those rules for the rest of her life. She did not receive communion again until my birth father (baby daddy) passed away. My mother was 95 years old before she received
communion again after my birth father passed away.
One interesting side note is while my mother took a lot of guff from her family for being excommunicated, she felt those sisters were bigger sinners than she was. Those sisters were not divorced, so they were not excommunicated. However, they were pregnant out of wedlock and, in some cases, did not marry the baby daddy. I am pretty sure none of them were excommunicated for it. My mother used to say that my father (adopted father, not Catholic – not the baby daddy) had more Catholic in his big toe than all her sisters’ hubbies had in their whole bodies.
The Self-righteous antics of Samuel Alito and his wife reek of this kind of onerous judgment. You should
fly a shame flag, Mrs. Alito, not for the pride flag you see but for your shame. For having hate in your
heart for Gay people simply because you cannot force them to adhere to your religion. Common sense
would tell you the country is diversified, and you cannot chain people to the wagon train you are taking to heaven. The idea you could create a prohibition on birth control is simply foolish. You could, but you
would make the biggest black market since alcohol prohibition. Individual States are already stockpiling.
You can do that to a different extent with abortion. We already did that. Those types of prohibitions are
not enforceable. None of them are taxpayer problems, either.
Mr. Alito, You are not considered a bigot because you believe and say marriage should be between a
man and a woman. You are a bigot because you want to force everyone to adhere to your religious
beliefs with hate for those who don’t. Your self-righteous crusade is the stuff religious wars were over.
People are trying to legislate morality and then, of course, trying to enforce their version of morality. In
the long run, those crusades fail, and they only create chaos, crime, and even war.
I think they should send public officials to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings even if they are not alcoholics.
AA does a great job of coaching people to be nonjudgmental towards others. Because changing their
behavior is probably impossible, they will just do what they want. However, you can change your
behavior. Nobody should be foolish enough to try to stop all the women from having available birth
control. What a Crusade that would be!
Other countries have found that a birth control ban is the only way they could get women to have more
children. You’ve come a long way, baby! Thank goodness for immigration; it seems a lot better than being
barefoot and pregnant! Radical personalities tend to be uncompromising. Perhaps someone should hoist
a Nazi flag up her pole. Religious Fundamentalist Radicals who partner up with Ayn Rand, Raw
Capitalists Fascists make for dangerous, strange bedfellows. History shows they commit bigger cardinal
sins in their coalition crusade to stop everyone from committing one sin! Parochial schools probably don’t
teach about ‘Absolutes’ Except for “one God only.” For Everyone! Boy! That has to be the ultimate absolute. It’s also not enforceable.
Tom Flash