[NYer]

In many ways, this is the best of times to be a Catholic in Los Angeles. “In the 1980s, we were conscious of dioceses closing churches all over the Eastern United States,” Cunnane told me. We were sitting in his office in a low-slung new building across the street from the church, where the administrative work of the parish is done. “Our problem is the reverse: were it not for the shortage of priests, we would be expanding our ministry.”

LIBERAL LION - Hispanic Catholics call him Ragella

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This is a very lengthy article. Unfortunately, the NYT must be excerpted. Hope someone from CA will read it through and post some meaningful commentary. It just doesn't pass the sniff test.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

[mtbopfuyn]

In other words ICE should be camped out every Sunday with 3 dozen buses?

[netmilsmom]

What does Ragella mean?

[sheana]

I live in California and guess what? I have a sis-in-law that is a Parish Coordinator for a local Catholic church and a cousin that does maintenace for them.

Mass runs round the clock and is mostly done in Spanish. They have fit as many masses as possible into ach day. They are always full and overflowing.

On the other side. They have installed bars on every door and window of the parish. The office is locked all the time and you can only get in via buzzer. The people that run the youth groups etc. have unbreakable rules. The children are not allowed out of their sight and are "escorted" to the bathroom even.

The cousin that does maintenace has been there about 10 yrs. He says this is the nastiest he has ever seen it. Dirty diapers underneath the pews after service, etc. They have a crew that cleans between each service because of all the trash.

The head priest is proud as can be of their huge congregation and boasts about the number of christenings each year. Last year they did 1300 if I recall correctly. I asked sis-in-law how many were to illegal aliens and she said probably around 75% at least.

Welcome to the third world.

[sheana]

I forgot to mention the plugged toilets daily and the graffiti weekly cleaning. They tag everything.

[carolinalivin]

This picture is of a man posing as a cardinal of the roman catholic church. He has hidden records of child molestors from civil authorities and transferred them around in order to hide the problem. Yet, he still has his job and is apparently a hero to hundreds of thousands who don't care about what happened to other people's children.