Thoughts on Catholicism

Americans obviously have changed their opinions of Catholics and their popes over the past 50 or 60 years. When I was growing up in Southern Humboldt County our Catholic neighbors were some of our best friends; however my parents would not have voted for a catholic, they despised the papacy. Those of us who are long in the tooth will recall that JFKs biggest impediment to becoming president resulted from the fact that he was a Catholic and many feared that his catholic beliefs might influence the way he governed. My earliest years were spent in the Seventh Day Adventist Colony in Eel Rock California. The colony was comprised primarily of elderly retirees who had moved to the colony to await the second coming of Christ which their leader, the false profit Sister Ellen White, assured them was imminent. These elderly SDAs believed, and rightly so, that the Catholic Church was an evil institution and that the church's popes were among the most wicked men to ever walk the face of the earth. These people knew full well that tens of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered by Catholic popes during the Medieval and Spanish Inquisitions. Most of these innocents were Jews who were murdered for their money. I am sure that it would come as no surprise to these elderly SDSs to learn that many catholic priests were later discovered to be pedophiles. My first experience with Catholicism occurred when I was around eight years old. Our good friends the Salazar's ( MR Salazar was the railroad section foremen at Eel Rock at the time) had a daughter named Hope and twin boys around four to five years old. I do not recall their names. Tragically, both of the twins drowned in the Eel river after entering a row boat that turned over while they were playing in it. Freddy Nunnemaker, Billy Gallagher and I were pallbearers at their funeral mass in the Fortuna Catholic church a few days later. I recall thinking that it was, with its holy water, incense burners and lighting of candles and mumbling Latin homily, the most bizarre and ludicrous event I had ever attended. But the absurdity of the Catholic mass is not the reason for writing about this tragic event; rather, it was the episode that preceded the mass that drew my attention. The Salazar's went to the Catholic Cemetery in Eureka to chose a final resting place for their boys. Mrs. Salazar was appalled at the appearance of the weed infested place and refused to have her sons buried there. She ultimately chose to have the twins buried at the nondenominational Ocean Side Cemetery next door. But, unbelievable as it may sound, the Catholic Priest at Fortuna refused to set foot in the Ocean Side Cemetery and, thus, refused to mumble his unintelligible words or sprinkle holy water over the boys before they were laid to rest. Mrs. Salazar was devastated by the refusal of the church to assist in the proper burial her boys. When we visited the family some ten years later in San Rafael, it was clear that she had never recovered from the unseemly way her boys were treated by unholy father of the Fortuna Catholic Church. For my part, I have never set foot in a Catholic Church since the day I participated in that ludicrous funeral mass some 70 years ago and will not do so in the future. It is clear that the public's view of Catholicism has changed drastically since the Salazar twins drowned in the Eel River and JFK was elected president, probably because the last three popes, especially Frances, have seemed more likable and humble than the churches previous leaders. Whether this perception is a reflection of meaningful change in this evil establishment's hierarchy remains to be seen. I, for one, am skeptical.