The Recovering Choir Director

At a dinner last night, a particularly interesting story was brought up regarding last Saturday’s anti-war protest here in Ithaca.

One of the chaplains was assigned to cover confession and 4:30 PM vigil Mass duties for the pastor of the downtown parish while he was away on a parish retreat. When he got to the church just before 3 PM (when confessions are scheduled), he saw a commotion outside the main entrance, which included police officers. When the chaplain asked what was going on, the officers told him that two people barricaded themselves in the top of the belltower, unfurled an antiwar banner from it, and started ringing the bell. Furthermore, the police barred the entrance to the church as the situation was labeled “sensitive” if not “dangerous”. The police couldn’t get to them because the protesters stood on the trap-door entrance to the top of the tower.

Although I’m not sure these two individuals were members of ICW, they were definitely members of the parish. They were eventually coaxed down by another member of the parish who called them on their cell phone, saying something to the effect that, “If you don’t get out of there, you’ll be in effect cancelling Mass.”

Confession, however, was effectively cancelled.

<sarcasm>So the lesson here is: Eucharist > Sensationalism > Forgiveness of Sins.</sarcasm>

The full story on the earlier, bloody Ithaca Catholic Worker protest mentioned earlier may be found in the Palestine Chronicle.