Since 2008, I have had the privilege to volunteer at the Brother Dan Food Pantry, and during Lent, to work the Friday fish fry. In the last couple of years, my times at Brother Dan’s have decreased mostly due to scheduling conflicts, but that fact has not dwarfed my intent or my conviction to assist those in need. What is more relevant is my issues with the Catholic church during that same expanse of time. The St. Francis Xavier community has been nothing but gracious and wonderful to me; however, within the bowels of the beliefs captured within the greater Catholic church emanating from Rome, I take umbrage. The last two election cycles threw me over the edge with how unchristian some of my fellow Christians became. And now in the face of our new fascist government, I watch and listen with amazement the number of people who call themselves “good Catholics” degrade and hold contempt for people of color, other religions, and worst of all people who are simply different from them. I hear about the fear of Sharia Law while at the same time conservative evangelical lawmakers attempt to write laws under their own religious convictions. I have become so afraid to talk with common folk about common subjects because so often anymore dark closets open in the conversation reveling pathways to thought and theory I would never have expected. At coffee yesterday, a friend noted that this contempt was “people’s passion for their beliefs.” My retort was easy: “It’s never been this bad or to this level – at least in my lifetime.” So as I pass out mac and cheese at the Friday Fish Fry, I wonder about those whose plates are before me. What do they think of me? What do they think of others who aren’t white, middle class, and believe in a different path to spirituality? I have lost my ability to see through the morass of evil and find the goodness that used to be the halo of my community. I hope to work through this and look deep inside myself to root out my own prejudice.