Today on Religion

Well, its that time again. Time for the Today show to talk about the Catholic Church. Today's... Today story (its a video link) is about a Catholic pastor requiring Sunday Mass attendance of parents who want their children to receive scholarships to attend the parish's school. Oh, my, how awful. And why is the Today show covering this story? Because how dare that priest demand that parents attend Mass every week!* My favorite part of the coverage, which you won't see on the video is how Matt Lauer took the show to commercial before they ran the piece, referring to the pastor as an "angry priest". You'll see just how "angry" he is... yeah, pretty much the most harmless person ever.

* Our regular contributors are aware that "Mandatory Mass?" as the headline of the story reads is not a new thing. The only reason that this priest is documenting attendance is because he would rather not throw the church's money away to families that are not bringing their kids to church. Though signing in every week would be a bit annoying, I think it is a great idea. Though some parishes have used tithing as a measure of participation for these things, the great thing about using Mass attendance is that it takes the focus away from the money. There are wealthy parishes were people are more than happy to pay whatever it costs to get their kid into school there. Doesn't mean they are going to Mass though.

P.S. 200TH POST!