"I know who gives and who does not": a priest claims his faithful have been too stingy in their offerings to the parish
The faithful in the Spanish parish of Ciudad Real were completely shocked when their priest, during one of his usual homilies, accused some of his most faithful parishioners of being stingy and of not having donated even 10 or 15 euros to help with the renovation of the church. The homily was promptly recorded and uploaded to YouTube and generated a wave of indignation, argument and much controversy.
via El Espanol
The parish priest of the Valdepenas Church in Ciudad Real has accused some of his lifelong parishioners of not having given enough money to the offerings to be used to finance the renovation of the religious building. In his controversial homily, the pastor lashed out at the congregation with these words: "I know who gives and who does not. There is a man who in the last eight years has told me more than 15 times that he will bring me his bank account details to charge him the contribution, but he has never brought it to me. How can you have such a hard face? People think we're stupid. I see everything; just keeping quiet doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know who gives and who doesn't give, who gave for the restructuring work and who didn't give."
Begun in 2021, the restoration of the parish church cost a total of one million euros; the church took on half of the restoration costs, while other public and private institutions were asked for the rest. But during this homily, the priest explained that there were still 80 thousand euros to found: "Next week we will inaugurate the work and no one has asked me how much it will cost, it is a taboo subject, they do not want to talk about. No one has asked how much is left to pay [...] To those of you who think that everything is rosy, think about it, because 10 or 15 euros a month is what you normally spend on a round of beers."
Many of the faithful parishioners have complained about this pointed invective against some of them, so much so as to cancel the baptisms they had scheduled in the church with the parish priest.
Perhaps this priest will realize that he went a little over the top during his homily?
