Top Ten Things People Hate About the Catholic Church. Top Ten Things People Hate About the Catholic Church, or, Ive suffered for my art, now its your turn. Oops, sorry  Wrong quoteRum, sodomy and the lash  Thats the British Navy. Or a cracking album by the Pogues. Still not quite there. Ah, here we are  Rum, Romanism and Rebellion  Speaking as a rum sozzled and youll see the application of that later on as you read down, since this was conceived and partly written whilst partaking of Captain Morgans and Coke, rebellious remember when in doubt, blame the Brits Romanist, I have to ask Why do you say that like its a bad thing Okay, here is where I as a representative of my Church, God help us all set myself up as an Aunt Sally for you lovely, lovely people out there to throw sticks at. Anything and everything that has ever annoyed, or currently is annoying, you about the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church heres your chance to get it off your chest. Dont worry about political correctness or holding it all in or even common courtesy to an extent nothing too vicious that will cause the moderators to ban your backside until the Second Coming, please. I wont be offended by anything up to and including Your cult is not a Christian church, youre all pagan goddess worshipping idolaters and youre going to burn in Hell along with your father the Devil and his servant the Anti Christ, or as you call him, the Pope. This is also equal opportunity bashing dont feel obligated just because you had the water poured over you at Our Lady of the Perpetual Bingo Nights to keep things under your hat out of some sense not washing dirty linen in public or not fighting in front of the neighbours family rows are the best free entertainment  Whether you come from the Society of St. Pius V who broke with the Society of St. Pius X for being too liberal or the Giant Papier mch Puppets of Doom wing of Holy Mother Church, this is an opportunity for you too to get stuck in to your co religionists. Im not going to reply to any comments I may make further comments of my own, because when did you ever know me to be able to keep my beak shut, do any further explaining of abstruse theological points or popular devotional practices, or use this as a teaching opportunity Im not trying to draw anyone out, Im not laying back in the snipe grass waiting to pounce, Im not making any kind of a point. This is your excuse to vent without fear or favor. Im just going to sit here with an objectionable grin plastered on the front of my big turnip head, unassailable in my sense of Romanist superiority to the lot of yez. To kick things off, heres my list of ten things that really get up peoples noses about the Catholic Church. Its not arranged in any kind of order of either gravity, relevance, or ascendingdescending order of importance. Its not even a proper Top Ten, just ten random things that popped into my head for no particular reason except that Ive heard themread them in printread them onlinehave a vague notion somebody said something along these lines sometime somewhere. Please, I invite you all fill up the comment boxes with your own lists and annotated reasons why the Catholic Church either as an institution or in the persons of its members drives you spareAnd with that invitation, Jeff and Chaplain Mike have their very first reason why a Catholic is driving them up the wall. The Ten Commandments Theater Cartoon' title='The Ten Commandments Theater Cartoon' />We have a Magisterium and you dont. Never mind the fact that the average John or Jane in the pew probably cant even pronounce Magisterium, much less give an accurate or at least working definition of it, we have one and you probably dont. So what is it  One previously owned Magisterium, lightly used, in excellent condition, owner must sell as going abroad, all reasonable offers considered, choice of colours for first sixty applicants You would not believe how crazy this drives some people inside the Church, for equal and opposite reasons. More on that further down in another point. Unlike the rest of us, UPS has already begun to plan ahead for the holiday season. On Monday, UPS announced that its raising its shipping rates around Black Friday. We dont know what we believe, but were pretty sure that its better than what you believe. Following on from the above, thanks to the dreadful state of catechesis in the English speaking world and Im not so sanguine about other areas either over the past thirty something years in the wake of the much abused Second Vatican Council, most Catholics unless you meet a convert, who actually had to learn and remember all this stuff before wed let them in the door so we could hit them up with the collection envelopes havent a bulls notion of what exactly the doctrines and dogmas of the Church are, despite being dragged to Mass every Sunday and holyday of obligation plus going to some school founded, run or staffed by nuns or brothers. This is not some fake nostalgia all my nostalgia is real and freshly picked from verdant green meads, dew wet under the Spring morning sunrise for the Good Old Days, because back then people were just as ignorant, but at least they had rote memorisation of the old catechism to fall back on to parrot off to an enquirer for instance, it really spooked me when out of the depths of the far distant past one of those learned it when I was seven answers floated up out of the darkness of my subconscious in reply to a question on a point of doctrine but by God, it worked  I have also had the experience of being the only person in a group of about nine or ten women who could recite the Ten Commandments, though once I got started, a couple of the older women chanted along because their memories were stirred. This was on a training course under a Government scheme for unemployment some ten years back, and not anything to do with Bible study, so you can see Ive been making myself obnoxious about religion for quite a while now. To prove that the Good Old Days werent all that good, see this excerpt from a novel written by a convert and published in 1. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Basically, the scene described is when the errant father of the family comes home to die, the family want him to have the priest, he doesnt want this, and the uncomprehending and exasperated family friend wants them to give him an answer as to why this is so important or what they think the priest can do anywayThere were four of you, I said. Cara didnt know the first thing it was about, and may or may not have believed it you knew a bit and didnt believe a word Cordelia knew about as much and believed it madly only poor Bridey knew and believed, and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it came to explaining. And people go round saying, At least Catholics know what they believe. We had a fair cross section to night Anyhow, I am given to understand that this kind of slap dash approach can be really irritating to our separated brethren who have their favourite Bible translation ready, copiously highlighted and bookmarked and underlined, with killer verses that they are all fired up to use recitation in the original Greek optional once they get into a good, blood warming apologetics cage match with a Catholic, upon whom all this effort and knowledge is wasted when said Catholic goes Whats that  A Bible  Wow, you mean all that Mass readings stuff is collected together in a book and doesnt just come in those snippets on the missalette for Sunday and all the rapid fire recitation of facts and unanswerable spiritual conundrums is met with a shrug and Hey, its the Popes job to worry about that stuff. Sorry, gotta go I have a statue of St. Joseph to bury upside down in my cousins back yard so she can sell her house. The New Norm Of The North Cartoon there. Cant sing, wont sing. Seeing as how it was St. The Texarkana Gazette is the premier source for local news and sports in Texarkana and the surrounding Arklatex areas.