Posters with uplifting churchie slogans on blue sky and cloudy backgrounds have appeared in villages across the region. Fuschl even has angels stuck on strategic corners with key words such as 'joy' and 'happiness' painted underneath. Last weekend ladies dressed in blue anoraks handed out gummi bears and encouraged us to smile.
And yet still the overriding feeling you get from all this is one of guilt - see, the church DOES want you to be happy and smile, even though you are a sinful non-believer. Perhaps this is a cynical point of view and for someone who was never in the catholic church or ever particularly religious, I'm probably not the best to judge.
However, leaving aside recent international scandals, anecdotes from friends and family don't exactly fill you with a new-found desire to attend mass on a Sunday with the old folks.
The wife of a friend of ours who left had a rather unpleasant visit from the priests assistant who said he had "done a very bad thing!" In fact, the wife is to scared to leave in case of the impact that it might have on her kids not being able to take first communion. "They would be teased about it," she explains.
Another way of looking at it is that of my wife's, who recently posted on Facebook: "The efin bells just woke the baby AGAIN.
Free tip to the Austrian Catholic church - if you want to stop the mass exodus, forget the God Loves You posters and rethink the excessive ding dong sessions at random times in the afternoon."
1 comment:
If the church didn't ring their bells at night how would you know when it was 5 in the morning?
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