UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe
I must offer a deep respectful bow in the direction of Opus Dei Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, archbishop of Lima, Peru. The best I can tell, he unabashedly stands for what the Roman Catholic hierarchy is all about…money.
Last week I visited Lima and tried unsuccessfully to visit its cathedral. Here’s a recap of my effort.
Cashier: (As I tried to just walk in the church door.) Excuse me, you must buy a ticket.
Me: A ticket? For a church? I’ve visited many of the greatest cathedrals in the world and never paid.
Cashier: You have to pay to visit the Religious Art Museum.
Me: We don’t want to visit the Religious Art Museum. We want to visit the Cathedral.
Cashier: The cathedral is only a church when there are services. The rest of the time it is a museum. It’s free only when there are services.
Me: (Thinking any cathedral I’ve visited has oodles of services) Well, when is the next service?
Cashier: Saturday (This was Monday, by the way.)
Me: Saturday? When does the cathedral have services?
Cashier: Saturday and Sunday mornings only.
Canon 1221 states, “Entry to a church at the hours of sacred functions is to be open and free of charge.” This leaves the option to charge for things like sacred music concerts offered in a church. One probably assumes a cathedral for an active bishop has many hours of sacred function. But Cardinal Cipriani has whittled his cathedral’s sacred function times down to 2 Masses: Saturday at 9 a.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m. He even schedules confessions to occur during Sunday Mass, conveniently minimizing those pesky hours of sacred function which interfere with making money.
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