SAINT MARY'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, COLORADO SPRINGS

Building Aesthetics: t t. Saint Mary's is the largest of the many Catholic churches in the Colorado Springs area. It is grand and, in my opinion, overdone. The inside was pretty, but not cozy, boasting a mismatched combination of gothic and art deco styles. The large baptismal pool near the entry smelled like flatulence, and the smell embedded itself in my olfactory. It was like having mass next to the hot pots in Yellowstone!  

Creepy Glazed Eyes: t t. People here did not strike me as creepy, but they also didn't strike me as  happy or friendly either. One thought I kept having during the service was that most of the people here would probably be annoyed by Jesus if they met him on the street after leaving church. I also had a hard time understanding how the mostly conservative looking congregation makes sense of what amounts to, at its heart, the radically socialist dogma of Christianity.

Hassled by Members: t t t t. No hassle here. No order of service either, which made following along with all the unfamiliar rituals and songs rather difficult. 

Religious Time Management: t t. Catholics do like their ritual. Lots of group recitation, standing, kneeling, chanting, and even strange hand-holding. For an outsider, it is not easy to fit in if you don't know what you are supposed to be doing at any given moment. The priest was Peruvian, and not always easy to understand. The mass had two separate reading from the bible, and not being familiar with the context, I had no clue what they were about. I've never understood why churches read little excerpts from the Bible without offering context. They might as well be reading from James Joyce's Ulysses:

The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited (page 266, section 261). 

Yes, that is what random passages from the bible sound like to the overwhelming majority of us!

Misinformation: t t. Morality is a tough thing to preach. People tend to preach morality as objective truth, and that can cause problems. Case in point: the priest asked what we would do if we were homeless and found a bag with $50,000, and yes, the "right" answer was that obvious. My first thought however was, "if I find a bag with that much money, it is almost certainly drug money. I'm homeless, life has kicked me around pretty good, and then I stumble on a bag of drug money. I'm using that dirty money to turn my life around, and I'm pretty sure God would be happy I did." Apparently the priest's example was based on a real incident in Boston, and after he returned the money, the homeless man said that God was his sole provider. In my thinking, your sole provider just tried to hook you up, and you didn't understand the gift. And the drug dealer you returned the money to, not believing his luck, probably went out and blew it all on coke and hookers. On a separate note, the bulletin we grabbed after the service urged congregants to opt their children out of sex education in public schools, because, though not noted on the pamphlet, God loves famine and overpopulation.

Presence of God: t. I felt nothing at church today. Nobody seemed to be singing along to the music, and I never knew where to find the lyrics anyways. At one point a soloist sang "Praise Thy Lord", and I could  almost envision Jesus putting on headphones. At other churches I've felt something during  the rituals, but today the rituals seemed too calculated and overly theatrical. It has been a while since I've been to a Catholic mass, but I have to say communion feels pretty bizarre with perspective. I like symbol and metaphor as much as the next guy, but seeing a church full of people waiting in line to drink the "blood" of a guy they respect is weird. I have a reverence for writers like Melville and Thoreau, but I don't need to physically or spiritually consume their bodies to learn from them. During communion I just kept thinking of True Blood.      

Overall Inspiration (total score): t t. I gave this church two crosses because I really want to reserve one cross for services where I am uncomfortable and feel like the mass is intentionally misleading. I did not feel either of these things were true about Saint Mary's. I was just bored and uninspired.