T
Templum
Guest
HI,
My priest is Foreign and gives Masses in his mother-tongue to his parish members. He doesn’t own the church. The diocese does. I’m overseas now and my priest is a guest priest in a church here overseas. There is another priest who oversees our Mass and he is a local in this country. Therefore for our Mass, we have the guest priest who gives Mass in a Foreign language and the local priest who oversees the Mass and who speaks the country’s language. We also have local volunteers who help us Foreigners from time to time.
Now, for some time now, I’ve been active in the Mass that I attend and have been organizing good things for it. I have permission from both priests (Foreign and local) to sell tickets for lunches etc. Now, that said, something bad happened to me recently. I would like to have your ideas on how to correct this within the church system. This isn’t the same system as the teaching system or the banking system. There is an ethical system, but the know-how is different than the ones in common life. Can you help me understand what the best procedure would be to fix this problem?
Problem: I was sellling tickets at the back of the Mass one day and to my surprise, I had to sell more tickets than usual. The Mass was over, but another Mass was about to begin not much time after. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to sell all the tickets. I was hurrying up because the other Mass was about to begin. Just as I was thinking about how to get out of the back of the Mass, a church attendant (someone who leads people into the church and oversees the parking lot, tapped me on the shoulder 2 times and harshly said this: Get out of here! I told him to relax because I found his approach so aggressive and demeaning. He was rude and told me in a harsh way, what to do as if I were invading space. I agree that the next Mass was about to begin and I had to hurry up to get out. However, I found the attendant extremely rude and verbally aggressive. Now, I felt that if I hadn’t left that area soon, he would taken serious action. He didn’t approach me in a calm way like one would expect in a church system where people are “brothers” and “sisters”. He was very rude. I felt the need to defend myself and said bluntly “Just relax”. That’s how aggressive he was.
The church attendant works in a church office I noticed. I contacted the guest priest and the local priest to tell them the story. I even told this story to the volunteer leader. I haven’t heard from them yet. I’m waiting to see what solution they can propose for this. I proposed some solutions on how to avoid this situation again. Again, I couldn’t get out fast enough because of the line up for tickets. It wasn’t an easy situation. The church attendant who is not Foreign and who is a local of this country, yelled at me 2 times instead of calmly asking me to leave the area.
This church attendant couldn’t cope with the idea that I was selling tickets in the back of the Mass for so long. I had to bring the lin eup outside to finish the ticket stuff. I quickly notified the priests and didn’t hear any solution right away. I notified the volunteer leader and am waiting for ideas.
I thought it good to sell tickets in another area or at another time. Also, I thought it good for a priest or a volunteer to communicate my purpose to the church attendant and to clearly do it, so that he knows why and who I am. I’m working for my guest priest.
Apart from feeling upset because someone is yelling at me like I have no rights and am a nothing in his eyes, I felt that this person would do this again in the future. This was like a warning coming from him.
What would you do in this situation. I have “survival instinct” and can report to the “heads” of the church, but what would you do about the tickets? I have my own ideas, but wouldn’t mind hearing other approaches to this problem.
What an unpleasant situation. I hope to overcome it.
Thanks,
Templum
My priest is Foreign and gives Masses in his mother-tongue to his parish members. He doesn’t own the church. The diocese does. I’m overseas now and my priest is a guest priest in a church here overseas. There is another priest who oversees our Mass and he is a local in this country. Therefore for our Mass, we have the guest priest who gives Mass in a Foreign language and the local priest who oversees the Mass and who speaks the country’s language. We also have local volunteers who help us Foreigners from time to time.
Now, for some time now, I’ve been active in the Mass that I attend and have been organizing good things for it. I have permission from both priests (Foreign and local) to sell tickets for lunches etc. Now, that said, something bad happened to me recently. I would like to have your ideas on how to correct this within the church system. This isn’t the same system as the teaching system or the banking system. There is an ethical system, but the know-how is different than the ones in common life. Can you help me understand what the best procedure would be to fix this problem?
Problem: I was sellling tickets at the back of the Mass one day and to my surprise, I had to sell more tickets than usual. The Mass was over, but another Mass was about to begin not much time after. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to sell all the tickets. I was hurrying up because the other Mass was about to begin. Just as I was thinking about how to get out of the back of the Mass, a church attendant (someone who leads people into the church and oversees the parking lot, tapped me on the shoulder 2 times and harshly said this: Get out of here! I told him to relax because I found his approach so aggressive and demeaning. He was rude and told me in a harsh way, what to do as if I were invading space. I agree that the next Mass was about to begin and I had to hurry up to get out. However, I found the attendant extremely rude and verbally aggressive. Now, I felt that if I hadn’t left that area soon, he would taken serious action. He didn’t approach me in a calm way like one would expect in a church system where people are “brothers” and “sisters”. He was very rude. I felt the need to defend myself and said bluntly “Just relax”. That’s how aggressive he was.
The church attendant works in a church office I noticed. I contacted the guest priest and the local priest to tell them the story. I even told this story to the volunteer leader. I haven’t heard from them yet. I’m waiting to see what solution they can propose for this. I proposed some solutions on how to avoid this situation again. Again, I couldn’t get out fast enough because of the line up for tickets. It wasn’t an easy situation. The church attendant who is not Foreign and who is a local of this country, yelled at me 2 times instead of calmly asking me to leave the area.
This church attendant couldn’t cope with the idea that I was selling tickets in the back of the Mass for so long. I had to bring the lin eup outside to finish the ticket stuff. I quickly notified the priests and didn’t hear any solution right away. I notified the volunteer leader and am waiting for ideas.
I thought it good to sell tickets in another area or at another time. Also, I thought it good for a priest or a volunteer to communicate my purpose to the church attendant and to clearly do it, so that he knows why and who I am. I’m working for my guest priest.
Apart from feeling upset because someone is yelling at me like I have no rights and am a nothing in his eyes, I felt that this person would do this again in the future. This was like a warning coming from him.
What would you do in this situation. I have “survival instinct” and can report to the “heads” of the church, but what would you do about the tickets? I have my own ideas, but wouldn’t mind hearing other approaches to this problem.
What an unpleasant situation. I hope to overcome it.
Thanks,
Templum