Christian charity?

Eight times out of ten, when the telephone rings on a Saturday you can be sure the caller wants one of two things: Mass times or money. And sometimes, though very rarely, both.

Now, this is not a post against people calling for either of these, but rather something related to the first.

This morning I received a call from a woman needing help with her rent payment. By Monday morning at eight o'clock. The details of her situation are of no importance here and why she waited to seek help until Saturday is anybody's guess. Why anybody waits to call until Saturday is anybody's guess, but quite a few people do.

Very often, for one reason or another, callers seeking financial assistance are not Catholic. You can always tell when their first words are, "Is this a preacher?" to which I respond, "This is a priest." And we stumble on from there as we did this morning.

I've often wondered why Protestants call the Catholic Church seeking assistance and not their own ecclesial community. One reason, no doubt, is that it is difficult to reach anybody at most Protestant offices on a Saturday while a few priests in the country still answer the telephone. Another reason is that some ecclesial communities will only help a person if they join their denomination. It's very sad.

The Catholic Church gives what it can to whom it can. Period.

The caller this morning assured me that her father will repay the parish for the money we are giving towards her rent, but she would need the address of the parish first.

"The address is in the phone book," I said, not expecting to receive anything since we hear this all the time (only once have I received a "thank you" letter from someone we helped). But I have no reason to doubt her. As she said something after I mentioned the phonebook it occurred to me that something seemed funny with her request for the address.

If she, not being a parishioner, called us she surely used the phone book. It seemed reasonable enough, so I asked, "How did you get our number?"

"The first preacher I called gave it to me," she said. This might well be another reason so many people come to the Catholic Church seeking assistance: other pastors refuse to help those who come to them. Those seeking assistance know the Catholic Church will actually assist them, rather than refer them to others.

Now it's true, I will refer people first to Catholic Charities during the week, but they aren't open on the weekend. And they're still within the Church. I've never sent someone to a Protestant community, not even a Protestant. And if I ever do I will call them first to let them know the situation and why I referred the person. No such call was made to us.

I'm half-tempted to telephone the woman back and ask which preacher sent her to us and call him (or her) to get the story. And to see what they say about the Catholic Church, both in sermons and in conversations.