The Church wants to take shots at the President for fun and profit.
Check out the story linked here about an image of President Obama being used as target practice.
This is the coal mining region about 70 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
From the story -
(Pastor) Rev. Jim Prior said he didn't learn of the game until a parishioner complained after the carnival. He said he "most certainly would have put a stop to it" had he known sooner.
"We're used to this kind of bigotry and prejudice, and we abhor it but it's the way of the world," Prior said. "Even the Divine Father himself is vilified in today's culture."
The pastor is responsible for what goes on at his parish and how it raises funds. If he did not know what was going on here, that makes him incompetent. In addition, this speaks to the people ponying up the cash to take their shots at the President. Are they that numb to what they are doing?
When St John Neumann faced real bigotry in Philadelphia as the Cardinal close to 200 years ago, he did something positive about it. When the public schools refused admissions to Catholics, he built an alternate school system that allowed Catholic kids to get an education. That is facing down the bigots. The Philadelphia Catholic School system is alive today - well outlasting the Catholic bigots.
This Church made a profit from attacking the President. Using the excuse that somebody else is taking shots at the Divine Father is even more reason not to allow this. What part of the Gospel goes into - it is okay if everyone else is doing it - it is okay by God the Father?
This is just the variation of "everybody else is doing it, why can't I"? My kids come to either my wife or me with that argument, they stop talking because they know they just lost their case - automatic cause for rejection with no chance of appeal.
How about another facet of this? I was taught in the Catholic Schools to be Christ-like in what I do. I seem to remember a guy walking into the temple and turning over the vendors' stands for doing business in the House of His Father. This is even more egregious; the Church is advocating physical harm to the President and taking cash for it - in the name of God's House! This Pastor wants sensitivity towards the plight of Catholics. He needs to show some towards what is happening in this country.
When this Church puts our leaders out there as a target for physical violence, this Church, the Catholic Church, is feeding into the "kind of bigotry and prejudice" that is driving our national dialog into the gutter.
What is it going to take for this to stop? A lunatic taking a shot at the President? Harming the President? Or the unmentionable or unthinkable?
At that point the Church will attempt to offer condolences as it shrugs it collective shoulders with it's palms turned skyward; the "We aren't responsible" defense. However, the Church is now complicit in the de-sensitizing our society towards this very event.
Is this what it means to be a Catholic these days?