Holy Sports Complex!
Hello Everyone,
I am going to talk to you today about religion. Just a little, I’ll try to be respectful since it’s not my intention to attack the concept of believing in God and finding comfort or strength from that. I’m also limiting my focus on the Roman Catholic Church and a specific priest and life philosophy.
The man I will be talking about, in his defence, I have never met, though my wife has had dealings with him and for a long time I’ve tried not to say anything about it. The comments and issues she has with this man I find hurtful to the reputation to the Church and his attitudes seem to prove my point. I shall speak now and may the world not tremble with my mighty words.
For those who forget, I’m an agnostic who doesn’t preclude the idea of God, but I think such a being (whether a conscious entity or not) if they existed would be too powerful for man to know.
There in lies the problem, so many men claim to know what God wants and God always seems to want things any respectable supreme being would not need. I’m opposed to organized religion since it quickly became a corporation after the death of Jesus Christ. All his ideals put aside for the comfort of the riches and adulation the priests received from their flock in harsh times of the Middle Ages.
The subject at hand had to do with my wife who is gravely in debt (Though in my opinion the debt is not an issue, it was incurred from health issues since my wife is in dead-end job with no insurance, chance for advancement and she had to pay the doctor bills on her cards.) and was looking for some support for her family.
Especially her sister who had a newborn baby to care for. My sister-in-law is not a very responsible person and after CPS forced her to move in with my wife, which aggravated the situation, a plea for help was the order.
Despite being good parishioners who gladly donated what they could, when they could it seemed they just weren’t destitute enough. My wife was curious as to why this was. My wife requested information in regards to a project involving the disbursement of donations and why she was ineligible.
The emails beginning on the following date; Thursday May 10, 2007 went as such;
Hello Lamar,
I was just reading the Holy Spirit website and wondered how much money
has been raised for the new initiative spoken of here:
Our appeal, Laying Foundations For Our Future, continues to be met
with success. It is gratifying to learn that more and more of our
parish families have answered Fr. Carlos’ letter by increasing the
amount of their weekly offering. The additional income is providing
the financial means to achieve the goals that were outlined at the
beginning of this effort. Just a reminder: please use the special
commitment card to indicate your new level of offering, and then, in
succeeding weeks, resume the use of your regular offertory envelopes.
Also, could you outline in detail exactly where the funds that
parishioners are donating are actually going? i.e. for church expenses
and which ones, for new purchases and what those purchases are and how
they will be used and by whom, and so on.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Parishioner *******
cc: Archbishop of San Antonio, Most Reverend José H. Gomez STD
——————————————————————————–
From: Lamar Dews
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:20 AM
To: Father Carlos Velazquez (frcarlos@holyspiritsa.org)
Cc: John Dias (Work) (johnd@holyspiritsa.org)
Subject: FW: Laying Foundations For Our Future questions
Importance: High
I just received this e-mail from one of our Parishioners……..
Lamar
——————————————————————————–
Dear Mrs. *****,
Here is Father Carlos response to your e-mail. Because of how I sent
this e-mail to Fr. Carlos, he couldn’t respond to you directly.
Lamar Dews
Administrative Assistant
Holy Spirit Catholic Church
——————————————————————————–
From: Fr Carlos Velazquez
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 8:48 AM
To: Lamar Dews
Subject: RE: Laying Foundations For Our Future questions
Lamar,
Please respond to the noted email with the following:
Mrs. ******* *****,
Thank you for visiting our website. I apologize for not responding
sooner, but Thursdays are my day off and I do not usually check
emails, voicemails etc.
On Easter Week of this year, April 9-13, I sent every registered
parishioner a letter spelling out an appeal program entitled, “Laying
Foundations For Our Faith”. This letter
outlined a need for every parishioner to increase their weekly
offertory to the church. The reasons given were clearly stated. Two
specific reasons were given and one general: Specifically we need to
complete our West Ave. Fields project which was a project completed in
May of 2006. This is a piece of property which was purchased for the
parish to construct three ball fields, one pavilion, and one
concessions stand area, including bathrooms. This project is complete
but we are still needing to pay off the property and the buildings.
As of April 18, 2007 the Note Payable was $500,630.10. The other
specific project is for an upgrade of our audio equipment in the
church sanctuary as well as the purchase of some video equipment in
our church sanctuary. The video equipment would be to facilitate
baptisms during the liturgies. Instead of people turning their heads
around to view the baptism in the foyer of the church, they simply
would have to look at the blank wall behind the altar. The images of
the baptism would be depicted in real time on that wall. The other
general reason for the appeal is to simply cover our expenses. As you
know, expenses are escalating and we need to also pay our bills.
It is my hope that you will be able to increase your weekly offering
to Holy Spirit in order to continue to serve the people of God.
Peace and Blessings,
Fr. Carlos B. Velazquez
Pastor, Holy Spirit Church and School
So there it is….
My wife was denied financial aid for herself and her family so that a sports complex with 3 baseball fields, 1 pavilion and 1 concession stand area (with bathrooms) could be completed. coupled with a new audio/video project so that people would not have to turn their head during such ceremonies as a baptism, the total of this project being $500.000.oo.
Can you believe that? This is a church, not an amusement park. The money donated by the parishioners should be used to feed the homeless, provide relief fr those hit by hard times and charity work. This is why I get angry by organized religion, this is why I can’t follow any faith, not because of my general disbelief in God, but because man is ruins God for others with their greed.
2 important facts; First, my wife and I were not married at the time. So I could not provide aid for her during those times.
Second, I really enjoyed the way Fr. Carlos gave one last sales pitch for money in the same email responding to why he could donate to my wife’s welfare because he was was 500k on video equipment. You must have some nerve to request a person scrapping for money to feed their family to increase the size of their donations to the church. Shame on you Father Carlos.
I bid adieu,
your Origami reporter,
L.Manly
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2 Responses to “Holy Sports Complex!”
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September 27th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Hmmm. Could it be you are making the Liberal’s case that government should have a hand in health care as private sources and “faith based” institutions can’t be trusted to work fairly and unilaterally.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 am
I certainly am siding with the liberals on the health care issue. In the past few years I’ve seen just how much need there is and how one person can be utterly financially destroyed though the need of medical care that is beyond their earnings. My mom and I had donated at least a couple of thousand dollars between us to this church which we’d been going to for something like 2 or 3 years (since my mom moved to my state and since I returned to Catholic worship). My sister had one newborn infant and one 10 month old at the time and we were all crammed into my apartment with my mom. so I asked the church, being OUR church where we had a relationship with them and were registered tithing parishioners for help and we got the sports complex stuff. It really put me off my faith for a few months and I’m only just starting to recover. I am certainly appalled that a church would spend money on something so useless rather than on the needy people of its own community (not to mention the needy people of our city!).