From This Week's Mailbag

This week's church mail included a lovely postcard from San Jose. On the front was a portrait of Father Junipero Serra. Having grown up in California, I was familiar with Fr. Serra, as he is credited with establishing many of the missions along the El Camino Real (the King's highway). We learned about him in grade school.

Here is the message I found on the other side:

Dear "Reverend" XXXXXX,

It appears that the American Episcopal Church is dwindling into EXTINCTION. Geez, that's too bad. But the homosexuals will rejoice in your demise, ironically. Our Catholic Church, by contrast, is eagerly welcoming former Episcopalians. Cheers!

- J. Serra

My treasurer, who had collected the mail, was quite nervous about presenting me with this bit of correspondence. My response was to chuckle and say, "Please file this under 'N'...for 'Nuts.'"

No doubt this is a response to that NYT piece of a couple of weeks ago. If I recall, the San Jose paper picked up the story.

It is cause for one to wonder about what would motivate someone, who claims to be a Christian, to send such a message. Am I supposed to be cut to the quick now? Burst into tears? Load up my shotgun and go homophobic Catholic hunting? Repent and convert to Rome? What did this person think they would accomplish?

This is pretty tame when compared to some of the more demented mail others receive. Mike points us to this classic from the best of homophobic mail. I particularly enjoyed this bit:

...My wife is not a lesbian and neither is my son. I've never had sex with a man and neither has my wife. I hope that your campaigning for homosexuals is due to your being unknoweable rather than you thinking the things they do are just `sexual preferance.' Keep your sexual perversions to yourself and I'll keep my sexual perversions to myself...

You just can't make this stuff up.

Keep the mail coming. I can use the occasional chuckle.

J.