As a peon in numerous large companies over the years, I have collected little sayings that served as comforting aphorisms while I drifted from one hegemony to the next. One referred to senior managers and it was, “same circus, different clowns” and another was to consider oneself a mushroom: we were kept in the dark and copious quantities of manure descended from above.

For the Diocese of Niagara, the parishioners are its mushrooms. The fact that diocesan leaders have largely abandoned Christianity for a concoction of Gaia worship, Unitarianism and pantheism is disguised by the well practised waffling evasion of its priests and bishop.

Almost as bad, is the fact that the average parishioner has no idea that diocesan assets accumulated through offerings are being used to pay lawyers to throw fellow Christians out of the buildings they paid for.

In this vein, the latest diocesan budget intones:

We have not projected any investment return for 2010 as we anticipate these funds will be required to finance our ongoing cashflow needs as well as having offset operating losses for 2007 and 2008, in addition to funding the expenses related to the breakaway parishes.

The only real expenses that relate to the “breakaway parishes” are the considerable sums charged by the diocese’s lawyer – over $320,000 so far. The actual amount is absent from the budget as is any explanation of where it is really coming from: Niagara parishioners, it is coming from your pockets. It’s time the mushrooms woke up.