2 /5 Natasha Arias: I’m very disappointed by this church truly. I am a Catholic, but I do have to admit that I kind of dropped off for a little bit. I now have a baby and made the decision to get more involved so that I can teach my son. I went to look into the process of baptizing my son there, the process seemed a little extensive, and it seems to be mostly about money very “cash grabby”. With that said I didn’t care and I was willing to do what I needed to do. I got a chance to speak to father Thomas very briefly and he seemed very rough around the edges. Still I was fine with that. Where I draw the line is how he treated me when I went to ask him a question. After mass, I went to speak to him to ask him a question about the last thing that he said as mass was ending.. My baby got fussy towards the end of the mass and I wasn’t able to hear. He greeted me very rudely, but I brushed it off. However, when I asked him about the baptism, I felt very judged and discriminated against. He basically said.“You need to come for at least three months, I do not know you, you could just baptize your son and disappear” - I understand that he might have seen this. I just think it was really rude to throw that in my face. Additionally, the only way to prove that you do go to church is by handing in envelopes with money with your name on them, they log in their computer all the envelopes with your money, which is the only way to prove that you were at mass . There is no other way, no sign in sheet! you have to put cash in envelope. Put your name on it and that’s how you prove you were there. I think that is completely unacceptable, I don’t mind donating to the church but this whole process just put a bad taste in my mouth and I did not appreciate being spoken to the way that I was spoken to by “a man of God” - I am happy to say I did find another church who accepted me just the way that I am. I have my son’s baptism scheduled and they didn’t require me to give them three months worth of envelopes with money in them.
