"What's a 'scolding board'?" Carella asked.
"Just keep reading," Hawes said, "it's self-explanatory.”
... scolding board for our congregation. On these occasions, he has taken it upon himself to rail, nag, upbraid, revile, and berate...
"See what I mean?" Hawes said.
"Mmm," Carella said.
... the good and decent people of this parish for failing to meet their financial obligations by way of the weekly tithe to the Lord Our God.
He has pointed out that there are no less than forty-eight references to the tithe in scriptures. He has seen fit to quote many of these Old Testament passages, the most recent of which he included in last Sunday's sermon at a time of the year better suited to more spiritual matters. I quote it again now:
"From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return you, says the Lord of hosts.
But you say, "How shall we return?”
Will man rob God? Yet you are to me.
But you say, "How are we robbing In your tithes and offerings! You cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Bring the full tithes into the storeho that there may be food in my house!”
This from a spiritual leader, who has nothing but kindness and generosity from good people of this parish. My fell parishioners, I would like to offer my own from the Holy Bible. This is from the According to John, Chapter 2, verses 14 to
"In the temple he found those who selling oxen and sheep and pigeons,., the money-changers at their business. making a whip of cords, he drove with the sheep and oxen, out of the and he poured out the coins of money-changers and overturned tables. And he told those who sold pigeons, "Take these things away; you not make my Father's house a trade!”
Father Michael Birney is making our Father's House a house of trade!
We are all well aware of our obligation to the Lord, we know full well that five percent of our annual income is expected by way of a weekly offering to the church. But we refuse to be turned into a congregation of bookkeepers. Let Father Michael count the offerings again and yet another time, and then let him count his blessings as well. A noble man of God might then do well to apologize from the pulpit for accusing his parishioners of robbing from...
"Catch the last line," Hawes said.
... robbing from the Lord! Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Yours in Christ, Arthur L. Farnes
"Well..." Carella said, and handed the letter back.
"I know. You dismiss a loony right off because think nobody mails such a letter to the whole ation and then actually goes out to kill ,. But suppose...”
"Uh-huh.”
suppose this guy really was mad enough to go juke this priest? I mean, he sounds pretty angry, doesn't he? I'm not a Catholic, so I don't...
"Me neither," Carella said. He considered a lapsed Catholic; his mother said, "Shame on "Okay, so I don't know how far you can go yelling at the priest assigned to your church, if in he is assigned, that's something I don't know.”
"Me neither.”
"But let's say he's assigned and let's say youl unhappy with the way he's bugging you paying your dues...”
"Your tithe." .
"Same thing, so you write a letter.., for purpose? To get him recalled?
Do they do that in' Catholic Church? Recall a priest who isn't along with his congregation?”
"I really don't know.”
"Neither do I.”
"Or do you write to warn him that if he doesn’t t it out you're going to overturn his tables? I really, Steve, a lot of the stuff in this letter like a warning.”
"Where does it sound like a warning?”
"You don't think this wh money-changer-in-the-temple stuff sounds warning?”
"No.”
"You don' t?”
"I really don't. Where else do you se warning?”
"Where else? Okay, where else? How about here, example? Dit-dah, dit-dah, dit-dah, di... here. "Let him count his blessings.' Doesn't that sound like a warning?”
"No.”
"Let the man count his blessings? That doesn't like a warning to you?”
"No, it doesn't.”
"Let him count his blessings before it's too late!”
"Where does it say that?”
"Say what?”
"'Before it's too late.' “
"It doesn't. I'm extrapolating.”
"What does that mean, extrapolating?”
"It means to infer from what you already know.”
"How do you know that?”
"I just happen to know it.”
"I still don't think if you ask a man to count his it's necessarily a warning.”
"You don't.”
"No, I don't.”
"Okay, how about here?"A noble man of God ght then do well to apologize from the pulpit for his parishioners of robbing from the Lord!" else, right?”
"Where does it say. "Or else'?”
here. "Pride goeth before destruction, and spirit before a fall.' “
3esn't say. "Or else.' “
the code for. "Or else.' Look you clcn't want to go talk to this guy, we won't go talk to forget it. I just thought...”
"He sounds like a very religious man, that's Carella said. "There are people like that in world.”
Like my father, Hawes thought, but didn't Who named me Cotton. After the Puritan Priest.
"You want to know something?" he said. "In world, there are a lot of very religious people are out of their minds, did you know that? And of them have been known to stick knives in people. Now I'm not saying this Arthur L. F which is the name of a lunatic to begin with ... dude who done the priest, but I am saying you letter like this one, it could be a death threat is I'm saying, and we'd be very dumb cops if we go knocking on this guy's door right this what we should do.”
"I agree with you," Carella said.
Schuyler Lutherson wanted to know who disciples had sprayed the inverted Catherine's churchyard gate.
Because, see," he said, "I don't want coming here.”
Schuyler Lutherson was not his real name, real name was Samuel Leeds, a nice enough except that the Samuel sounded like a prophet Old Testament (which was the last thing on to sound like) and the Leeds sounded like a manufacturing town in the north of England. his great-great-great-grandfather had been ironmonger in Leeds before coming to America, that was ancient history and Schuyler chose to his heritage more fancifully.
He had picked the given name Schuyler not se it meant a "scholar" or a "wise man" in (actually, he was quite unfamiliar with the language) but because it sounded like "sky," in the skies above, or the heavens above, or the ,m of God above, from which an angel once fallen. For was it not Satan himself who'd been y expelled from Heaven, hurled the upper stratosphere to the fiery lower And was not Satan simultaneously known as whose name Samuel Leeds could not out of worshipful humility, but whose he could at least echo alliteratively... Lucifer, .. and then rhyme slantingly... Lucifer, .-. the surname achieving grandeur in Lutherson, the son of Luther, the son of leader of the Church of the Bornless One, all Satan!
NOT bad for a kid of nineteen, which was how old had been when he originated his church in Angeles. He was now thirty-nine years old, that been twenty years ago, away back in the days of flower children, remember, Maude? When was preaching love? Except Schuyler Lutherson on the pulpit of the Church of the Bt One, where between the spread legs of a voluntary "altar" each week, he preached opposite of love, he preached hate, scorching after pussy with the white-hot scorn of his Everything in the worship of Satan was a opposites, an exercise in reversal or obversi Through hate, love. Through denial, Through darkness, light.