There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. Adam Smith
Ed. Note: The first report from our vacationers who are in search of traces of the rector's quest for $30K. Happy Independence Day.
Dear Reader,
As you asked, we stopped by Our Lady Queen of Martyrs [the rector’s chapel] in Fraser, MI, on our way to our cabin on the UP [Upper Peninsula]. There we found the attached [see illustration above] envelope to reduce the church debt.
After Mass, we casually asked some of parishioners about the debt program and how much debt they had to pay off. The nice, unsuspecting people we spoke to were sure the church debt had been completely paid off some years earlier by a very hard working and popular priest, whom the rector inexplicably removed. The envelopes had just appeared recently. When we asked a few more discreet questions, the people became uneasy and hurried off, as though they were afraid of something. Another family that visits frequently explained the locals' fear of banishment.
The chapel is lovely inside, but the priest is very strange, to say the least. After the Gospel, as he left the altar to preach the sermon, he grinned like a Barbary ape. It was unnerving to watch. His English was so bad we couldn’t understand a word, so we weren’t able to tell whether he was asking for money or not. Throughout the audible portion of the Mass, he read the Latin haltingly and often had to begin phrases over again. We're SSPXers so we’ve never quite seen anything like this before. Those poor people!
The Reader Replies: Well, you finally saw, live and in person, the very worst of the MHT completers, viz. Father “What Me Consecrate?” He’s a hopeless case, and best forgotten.
The envelope is a real find. Our sources among traditional priests assure us that the OLQM debt was paid off years ago. We ourselves remember once overhearing the former pastor proudly tell some lay people how his chapel was free and clear of all debt, with a nice little savings account to boot.
This envelope may certainly suggest that something could be afoot. It’s still very hard to understand why the rector has not yet announced his $30K proposal, unless he's found another way to get the money. Our sources abroad report that the rector managed to recruit three Frenchmen for 2011-2012 year, so he definitely plans to continue running the pesthouse. Since the exposure of his French completer’s antics in Europe, the rector will surely want to impress these young men, who are very aware of the difficult conditions in the swampland. If the money is short, we don’t see how he’ll be able to keep a worried and hysterical Scut the Prefect from bullying the new seminarians and driving them away.
There’s got to be a story behind this envelope. We’ll let everyone know if we turn anything up before the July MHT newsletter blows in.
There seems to be only one of two possibilities:
ReplyDelete1. A lie is being told - a nice use of the passive so as not to accuse anybody in particular! - so as to trick congregants into re-paying a fictitious debt, this debt not existing, this dough is going directly into the coffers of Most Holy Trinity Seminary.
2. This Church has been remortgaged, the lump-sum going into the coffers of Most Holy Trinity Seminary, with the laity of this Church being made to carry the cost, or else lose the Church.
Possibility number one is shocking, and needs no further comment.
Possibility number two still involves the telling of fibs, but raises another important issue.
When watching the Consecration of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary Chapel, Saints Peter and Paul, by most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz, on E.W.T.N., the F.S.S.P. commentators made this point: a Church must be free from debt before it can be Consecrated.
When a Church is Consecrated - traditionally at least - it must never again be used for profane purposes. If a Church is in debt, there is a greater possibility of this sacrelige occuring, than if it were debt-free.
Perhaps there is some leeway on Churches being debt-free in a time of crisis such as this, but to deliberately re-endebt a Church, and to risk it, sacreligiously, falling into profane hands seems a bit beyond the pale to me.
I am not qualified to comment on canonical matters such as this: I only raise this point so as to have it clarified.
Scotus