The Catholic church in my tiny, otherwise-dying farm town just completed an expansion program that must have more than quadrupled the square-footage of the compound. They tore down the old school, moved the little rectory (that's a funny name for a place where priests live, isn't it?) and what used to be the nuns' house (I haven't seen a nun since they closed the school @ 1970), and they added a monstrously huge fellowship center that dwarfs the actual church. It must have cost four or five million at least. They planted twenty-foot tall trees all around the parking lot, so it looks like it's been there for years.
Of course, since the part of the country where I live ranks in the top five regions for producing hogs and cattle, and since nearly all the labor in those corporate-owned factory pens is now done by wage-slaves from Mexico, I don't know where they got the money. Word has it that a couple of guys who turned their profits from selling coke back in the 70s and 80s into what is now the only remaining local car dealership donated much of the money. But I know one thing-- every time I drove by the place while they were building it all I could think was that these rape victims should be getting their money and these criminals against humanity who run the church should be brought to justice before any more more such expansions are allowed.
