a very sweet Post, Willie, but we always have to remember and acknowledge what the
catholic-church-world has done and those who are behind the scenes, manipulating the
poor and destitute, and the widows and fatherless for their OWN GAIN, just look at their wealth
and the ways in which they display them: it's un-fathomable and mind boggling at the control that
they have over the 'poor and needy, lame lambs and sick...
hub and I call it 'witch-craft' to the max, the Bible tells us all about it...
This entire post is delusional!
I live in one of the wealthiest parts of the country. In the zip code right across the bridge from my house, the houses currently for sale range in price from $ $1,145,000-$13,900,000. In my city, 89 of the houses are currently for sale for from $3,099,000- $19,988,000! Yet within five blocks of my city’s civic center, there are right now, as I write, hundreds of homeless men, women, and children sleeping on the sidewalks in the shelter of the commercial buildings. The closest Baptist church to my house has a sign out in front that reads, “People are loved here,” yet the church has no programs of any kind to help the poor—and its doors are open for only 90 minutes once a week. The closest Methodist church to my house aggressively preaches that the homosexuals’ sexuality is a gift from God that should not be ignored.
However, the closest Roman Catholic Church to my house opens it doors seven days a week and has many programs throughout the week to minister to both the spiritual and the physical needs of the people in the community. It aggressively preaches that the practice of homosexuality is a mortal sin, and that a real marriage is ONLY between one man and one woman—and that the marriage vows are to be truly kept unto death.
The go to place for help for the very poorest of those homeless people is a Roman Catholic ministry to the extreme poor—people so poor and so severely in need that most other ministries in my city considers them to be beyond help.
Some years ago, I rented the second floor of a two-story building in the red light district of skid row in a large port city for a place to pioneer an inner-city church. That second floor had not been occupied for more that 20 years. The roof had been leaking for a long time, and the asphalt tiles on the floor were coming lose because of the rainwater. The plaster ceiling was falling to the floor in chunks also because of the rainwater. There was only one restroom—and it had no hot water. My home church thought that I was a fool for renting a space in such horrible condition, but a regular congregation of believers began to meet there on the second floor. We had an area that we wanted to use for a dining room, but we did not have any tables and chairs—and no money with which to purchase them. Consequently, without asking me for my permission, some members of the congregation went to the other churches in that extremely poor neighborhood and asked them to give us at least one old table or a chair, but none of the churches gave us anything. That is, none of them but one—the Roman Catholic Church.
Although the Church and its members were very poor, the priest told his congregation of our need, and asked them to give us a table or a chair from their homes. The church collected four old wooden tables, and sixteen old wooden chairs—all different—and brought them to us. Looking at the tables and chairs, and seeing that they were all different from each other, we realized that sixteen of those very poor Catholic families had given us a chair from their own kitchen; and that four of the families had given to us their own kitchen table! They knew that we were not Catholic Christians—but what mattered to them was that we were Christians who needed help.
During the years that I served as the senior pastor of that inner city church, I met multitudes of people that most of the other churches in the community wanted nothing to do with, and I heard from them horror stories about how other pastors and Christians had treated them. I also heard, over the years, some of these people tell me about a man of God whom they had met on the street where they were—a man who encountered them in the darkest and most sinful time in lives, and who manifested to them through his love and compassion the person of Christ. They had no idea, however, that this man was the senior pastor of the largest church in the city with eleven associate and assistant pastors working with him. This man had a personal relationship with God that was so pure and so spotless that Christ brightly shined through his daily life. I had the pleasure of spending 90 minutes with this man in his office at the Roman Catholic Cathedral where he served as the rector. During those 90 minutes, his secretary did not once knock on the door or even put through a telephone call—the monsignor treated me, a Protestant, as though I was a member of his own family!