Religion. For some, it's the center of their life. For others, they'd much rather not have it in their life at all. This last Sunday on the Catholic calendar was the Ephinify of the Lord Jesus. This is the part of the story of Jesus' birth where the three wise men came to visit Jesus. It marks the official end of Christmas for the Catholic. What has set me to write this blog is not that, but what the priest had to say during his sermon on that day. Part of his sermon centered on the three major religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism and the way we stand by our religion. Before I go into what the priest had said, I read a true story at Snopes.com a couple of days before that relates.
To make the story as short as possible, a Marine was in Chicago visiting a friend before deploying to Iraq. For those who have not been to Chicago, the majority of the streets are one way. Well, while attempting to park in front of his friend's apartment, the one way street he lived on was blocked so that the Marine couldn't go down the street in the right direction. Being a Marine, he over came and adapted by going around the block, then backing in up the street until he was in front of his friend's apartment. When the Marine went to leave after his visit was completed, he noticed a man leaning on his car. When he approached the man to get him off his car, the Marine noticed that there were scratches where the man had been. When the Marine went to confront the man, the man told him that the Marine didn't own the block and that all he did was brush up against the car; therefore, he couldn't have scratched it. The Marine also found out that the man was a Jewish lawyer. When the Marine when to press charges for the scratches on his car, the lawyer accused him and his friend, who was acting as a witness, of being anti-Semitic. This lawyer was luck that Marine just didn't kick his butt instead of pressing charges. Just imagine what would have happened to that Marine if he had done that.
This brings me to my point and to what the priest had said. The priest was talking about how Christians, Muslims and Jews take insults to their religion. In the case of the Marine, try and say something bad about Jews and all of a sudden you are anti-Semitic (which we all know is bad in legal terms). Try the same thing with a Muslim. You are labeled an infidel and are told that you will die for your comments. What about Christians? We are taught to turn the other cheek. A good point is with Christmas. Who ever heard of a holiday tree? It's a Christmas tree. Why as an employee can't I say Merry Christmas if I want to? Why are some companies making their employees say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas? If you don't like the fact that the majority of us celebrate Christmas here in the United States, well TUFF! Get over it! Try making a Menorah into something generic like a holiday tree and see what happens. It's not a Menorah, those are just holiday candles. Try calling the Quran just a book and see what happens. Cartoons that put God and/or Jesus in a bad light or that are putting them down is funny or OK, right? I was just thinking about that cartoon that depected Muhammad and how mad Muslims got.
Why is it that others can bash the Christian and get away with it? In a court of law, I'd be very surprised to learn someone who bashes the Christian religion would be sentenced or even found guilt of something as compared to one of the other aforementioned religions. I know that we are not supposed to judge each other in such a way. That's for God to take care of, but in my humanity, I can't help myself for having negative feelings for those who bash Christians. I guess it's kind of like Bush bashing. It's just the thing to do because it's popular pastime. Or maybe I'm just being too sensitive, but I don't think so.
The priest at mass also mentioned the isolated problems that the Catholic Church has had with some of her priests. What I want to know is why it's OK for a celebrity or a high ranking member of our government to perform sex acts outside of marriage, but it's wrong for a priest to do so? When Clinton did what he did with Monika, why wasn't he persecuted like the Catholic priest? Granted, his position in life is a lot different than a priest, but really... Is it really that different? Again, what about celebrities? They are mostly 100% times worse as they go from marriage to marriage and are unfaithful to the point of you needing to ask yourself, why did you get married in the first place? It's very rare that you find a celebrity couple that has been married only once. The big thing for me is that when all those priests were first found out, all of sudden, ALL Catholic priests had the same skeletons in their closets, which is just not true. It's actually a minority. Also, they are just as human as you and me. They have lusts just like you and me. What they need is our prayers and not our hate. It's true that they are supposed to be better than we are, but again, they are just as human as we are when it comes down to it. The only human that was able to resist sin of any kind was Jesus.
