When the Saints Come Marching In

Ha! Fooled you! You thought I was going to talk about football. I'm not. My marching saints are the Catholic kind (although I am partial to the WHO DAT team of the moment).

Last blog entry (or, was it the one before? I can't recall and for some reason Feedblitz didn't email me my last few posts so it's not fresh in my mind--man, I hope all of you are getting your blog entries...I'll be so sad if you're not), I babbled about the Catholic Church's public relations campaign. (I also babbled about recruiting straight people to join my church, but that's a whole 'nother story.) Clever commercials, calling us home--who can resist the calling of the Eucharist? It's been quite the media affair, to say the least.

Anyways, I was at work today--home of the religious zealots--when one of them brought me a bulletin from their Catholic church. (Do other religions call their weekly publications handed out during service a bulletin?) The real reason this particular co-worker brought me a Catholic bulletin was because we had been talking about advertising the program (of employment of which I do not speak) in the bulletins. (Hey, the Catholics have oodles of money and they have the population of which I seek, so I'm all for churchy advertisement.) The bulletin was placed on my desk, no comment made, no fan fare, no nothing. I took a gander at all the ads and realized that our ad would be a perfect fit, provided I could afford the advertising costs set forth by the Catholic Church. I then innocently flipped through the multi-paged publication....when a yellow sticky caught my eye....

....On the post-it was simply written: "I am inviting you back."

The sticky had been placed on an article regarding an invitation to non-practicing Catholics to take part in a six week program for those of us who had "been hurt or angered by the Church."

My own personal call home!

Only at my job could this happen.

So, I left the bulletin on my desk, thinking nothing further of it. A different employee walks in, sees the bulletin, picks it up and starts talking about the Catholic commercials calling Catholics home. He spoke of his congregation and of how wonderful the "campaign" truly is, inviting people who were raised Catholic to come back to the church. He then looks at me and quietly asks, "I know I can't really ask this, but may I ask what religion you are?"

(Only only only at my job!)

I simply indicate I was raised in the Catholic church. (I thought about reprimanding him for asking such an inappropriate thing at work but let it slide--it's not fair the evangelical types have had the chance to try to save me and he hasn't had his turn.) As it is quite evident that I am not a practicing Catholic, he too invites me home.

Two invites in one hour--SCORE!

I am perversely intrigued by this. What took the Catholics so long to start recruiting me at work? I mean, the evangelicals have a HUGE head start on them. As I contemplate this, another employee (a not-catholic-but-rather-saved-by-Jesus-type) enters the office, sees the bulletin and starts talking about those wonderful commercials. She loves their message, the situations, the call home. She went on and on.....the whole time I'm thinking, "Man, this is some ad campaign!"

If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was inviting me home, too. Three in an hour? That's got to be some record.

Alas, I have yet to return "home;" last time I checked, the Catholic Church hadn't changed its stance on details such as practicing/choosing/living a perverse lifestyle. BTW, I didn't buy ad space in the bulletin--those Catholics drive a hard bargain & were too expensive for my blood......

....do you think if I come "home" they will give me a discount?

I will turn my focus to the football Saints. WHO DAT calling me home?!!
*****************************************************************