Church neglects shut-in
Dear Editor: As an adult who was raised in the Catholic faith, and now attends another church, I have been following the tragedy taking place within the Catholic Church. It is unforgivable – however, there is yet another tragedy taking place within the Catholic Church that seems to go unnoticed.
We have an 80-year-old family member who has been considered a shut-in by her church. She is a life-long member of this church and attended and supported her church faithfully when she was in good health. For several years she has not been able to attend church. These days she is totally bedfast, but she enjoys watching game shows on television, and every day she plays a few games of cards, and a few games of checkers.
On Sunday mornings she looks forward to a visit from someone called an Eucharistic minister, a lay person who comes to give her Holy Communion. On the first Friday of each month there is a visit from the priest himself. These visits are very disappointing to her, and to us, because she is very hurt by the lack of caring, lack of interest, by these people. For many years she was a devoted member of the Rosary Society. As a shut-in, she receives a poinsettia plant for Christmas each year – a member of the society will deliver it to our door. Each year we invite them to come in and visit with her, and each year they refuse our invitation. Their ignorance will not let them see that she would enjoy a personal visit much more than a plant.
The folks who come on Sunday mornings rarely speak to her. They jog in the front door, toss the communion wafer into her mouth and run out like someone is chasing them. Most times they don’t hang around long enough to recite the Lord’s Prayer with her. They have absolutely no conversation at all with her. There is one gentleman in particular who does spend a minute or so talking with her, but other than that, there is nothing for her to enjoy. Her comment afterward, many times, has been “I don’t see why they even bother coming here.”
When the priest visits, he does not minister to her or talk with her. We have actually timed his visits and once must surely have broken some kind of record. From the time he came in the front door, and ran back out again, exactly nine, yes nine, seconds had elapsed.
Over a year ago I bluntly told him that I did not feel that he was doing his job, he was not ministering to her as he should, but it just went right over his head.
However, if we have a dog in the house when he comes, he will spend 10 times longer playing with the dog than he does with my family member.
Once he totally forgot to visit with her because he was out in someone’s field playing with a llama.
When this family member’s husband passed away 2 1/2 years ago, both the hospital chaplain and I personally left messages on the church and rectory answering machines, and when the priest who was at the church at the time finally got around to returning the call, he refused to come and administer the Last Rites of the Catholic Church because he was too busy.
Most recently the lay person who came to give her communion was caught treading where she should not have been. She was giving frightening unwanted, unsolicited medical advice to my family member, stating to my daughter that she could do this because she is a nurse – not in this house, she isn’t. She should have stuck to the reason she came for. After she left my family member was extremely upset because of her remarks.
The next day I called the church office and talked to the secretary, telling her of all of the things I have stated here in this letter. My last statement to her was, “If they cannot treat my family member with the utmost dignity and respect that she deserves in the last years of her life, and spend a little time visiting with her, they don’t need to come at all.”
These past Sundays, April 21 and April 28, we waited, but no one came. This, I suppose, was their way of telling us that they do not care at all about this 80-year-old bedfast woman who is a life-long member of their church.
Alanna McVay
Carmichaels