Pastor Pitstop is increasingly concerned, and upset, about how rich he believes the Catholic Church to be. He has some suggestions on how The Church could make the world a better place. His suggestions, while allowing him some personal gain, are certainly not made for that reason.
No, he has the betterment of the world in mind.
Dear Catholic Fundamentalism:
Some of us hate The Catholic Church because it is so rich, with that huge Vatican, full of billions of dollars of art. Why, if The Church were to sell all those paintings and statues, they might make five or ten billion dollars. That’s “billion” with a “b”. Not millions with an “m”.
Billions.
I know that my own church is very poor. Why should The Catholic Church have a huge pile of paintings by Raphael and my little Padded-Pew Perkmistianist Church outside of Slopeton doesn’t have a single one? It isn’t right. Wouldn’t it be fair if if they gave one or two to me and my church?
They could do it! The Catholic Church has billions of dollars worth of paintings. The other churches have hardly any! That’s not fair! You Catholics have been piling up that stuff, from the best artists in the world, since the Roman Empire. It’s not our fault that we haven’t been around that long, is it?
Should we be denied good art work of our own? After all, we are Christians, and we’re just as good as you are.
We have rights, too. Don’t we have the right to have the world’s best artists sculpting and painting for us? Why should you get all the good stuff just because we weren’t there to get it at the time? The United Nations should send in troops, gather up all those Vatican treasures, and provide “fair distribution”.
You guys even have an obelisk in the Vatican’s front yard. An obelisk! That’s really not fair. Not one Protestant church in the whole world has their own, actual, Egyptian obelisk! From Egypt! How much is that worth? Ten billion dollars? Twenty?
The other day, I was talking with Minister McMacMack. His mammoth Mega-Church is right around the corner, just half a block down Shady, and take a quick left on Broadpath, wants to buy our building. He needs our parking lot, because his “Rock ’em-Sock ’em Skeet Shoot Sermons” are bringing in too many people for his parking garages to hold.
Minister McMacMack, himself, told me that if The Catholic Church would give him a half a dozen Rembrandts or Picassos, he’d display them in our church. He’d turn it into a museum, charge admission, and I could be the curator. Now, I don’t know anything about curating, but I could learn, couldn’t I? Don’t I have the right to get ahead?
Do you know how nice it would be to have a steady paycheck? With kids from my first wife in grad school? You think that Masters’ Degrees in Ministerial Multisex are cheap? You think there are any jobs paying more than minimum wage for the people whose parents pay through the nose to get those degrees?
So, if The Catholic Church doesn’t want to give me a few dozen artworks that are real valuable, why not have them ship a few to Minister Mack? Then, we’d be better off and people would think you were being fair.
He said he’d be real glad to take some good quality stained glass windows off your hands, too. Wouldn’t that be a better way to show you were “Christian” than keeping them all to yourself? Just one Cathedral, like Chartres,has lots of good stained glass, and we don’t have any. I know, I know. You bought and paid for it, or someone who owned it gave it to you.
Still, fair is fair. You should be made to share. All I want is my own little bit. Just what’s rightfully mine. That’s all. Is that so wrong?
Sincerely, Pastor Travis Pitstop
Frankly, we didn’t know how to respond. Someone on the staff suggested: “Put a U.N. Certified Truly Poor Person from some hellhole like Nigeria in touch with Pastor Pitstop. He could demand that Pastor Pitstop ship half his furniture, food, and available funds to someone who’s actually U.N. Certified as Truly Poor for many of the same reasons he thinks The Church should give him artworks. It’s only fair.”
So, we here at Catholic Fundamentalism are in the process of finding a U.N. Certified Truly-Poor Person. It’s harder than you’d think. There’s a five hundred dollar fee to be officially recognized and provided with appropriate identification by the United Nations to be a Certified Truly-Poor Person. No one with a financial history of ever having more than eleven dollars can be so categorized. You’d almost think the U.N. went out of its way to be sure that no one could be helped by their own program.
Still, we’re working away. We would never want to deprive Pastor Pitstop of the opportunity to put his money where his mouth is.
