Oops
23 August 2006 by Bob
Priest gets parking ticket while giving last rites
NEW YORK (AFP) – A New York priest said he was saddened by a judge’s decision not to waive a parking ticket he received while administering the last rites to a dying woman. Reverend Cletus Forson was called to a Brooklyn hospital last month and left his car in a no-parking zone with a “Clergy on Call” badge in the window, only to find on leaving 20 minutes later he’d been slapped with a 115-dollar ticket. “If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,” the New York Post quoted Forson as saying. His appeal was rejected by a traffic judge earlier this month.
Where is this traffic judge? I wanna buy her a pizza…
P.S.: And you weren’t “really sad,” dickhead. You were pissed off. Just admit it. Enough with the all-knowing-condescending-I’m-just-disappointed-pseudo-parental-bullshit.
23 August 2006, on 5:31 pm
And you weren’t “really sad,” dickhead. You were pissed off.
Yep, I’m sure he, along with all of his “holy brothers” were cursing that cop and judge as that sat around the table playing “Altar-Boy Idol”…
23 August 2006, on 5:31 pm
Oops – should say “they sat”…
23 August 2006, on 5:56 pm
“If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,”
ummm…perhaps if the Reverend Cletus Forson had died himself I could see a justification for this request, but the reverend was merely pestering a dying person….what a self-absorbed jack-ass to think that entitles him some sort of special legal exception. Park in the lot, like the family of the dying woman did, you self-important prick.
23 August 2006, on 6:37 pm
godsarefake says:
Park in the lot, like the family of the dying woman did, you self-important prick.
LOL
23 August 2006, on 6:41 pm
Oh, what’s wrong Mr. Preacher? Didn’t like that you weren’t allowed some privelege because you are “a man of faith”?
TOO BAD.
23 August 2006, on 6:50 pm
I don’t think he was pestering the dying person; presumably he was there at the person’s request. But his comment about the “needs of a dying person” is just ridiculous! The law didn’t prevent him from fulfilling that person’s needs… that is, unless the person needed Cletus to park in a no-parking zone and not get a ticket for it. Who knows, maybe there is some religion out there for which this is significant. My religion’s last rites involve strippers.
23 August 2006, on 6:52 pm
I agree with Gods; if the parking lot is good enough for the dying woman’s family and friends, it’s good enough for her priest. Besides, he’s supposed to be following a higher moral standard, so what does he think is moral about breaking the law in the first place by parking in a no-parking zone? Would he still expect to be exempt from the law if he had parked in a handicapped space without being handicapped?
23 August 2006, on 6:57 pm
I would also assume that the hospital may even set aside parking for chaplains and the like, you know those who don’t “work” there but are volunteers. Either way, good for the judge.
23 August 2006, on 7:10 pm
I don’t think he was pestering the dying person; presumably he was there at the person’s request.
Perhaps I was channeling a bit of anger from personal experience. It does infuriate me how the clergy troll through the ICUs, sniffing around for death and pop in on families unwanted, like flies at a picnic. It’s a disgusting practice.
23 August 2006, on 8:02 pm
Take the fucking “N” train like everybody else- or the “R”.
23 August 2006, on 9:18 pm
It’s too bad the priest can’t see the fallacy of his own beliefs – If there is a god, would god let anything bad happen to those doing god’s work? And what’s he whining about anyway- priests’ needs and expenses are taken care of by the St. Holyroller parish in which they serve.
23 August 2006, on 11:34 pm
As someone raised as a Roman Catholic; even when I was a believer, I wondered why it was necessary to have the so-called ‘Sacrament’ of Extreme Unction…or the last rites having to be administered to a dying person. Of course the explanation was to, if possible, allow for a last minute ‘true contrition’ or sorrow for ones lifetime transgressions [Sins] by the dying person.
If already dead, the ordained priest had to say the prescribed ‘powerful magic words’ to plead to the almighty, lest the victim might be cast into eternal damnation; especially if the victim might be in the state of unforgiven ‘mortal sin’. Ooooh…how scary!…Yeah, that’s the point!
Of course the church doesn’t seem to EVER address the question…”why does an all ‘blah-blah’ god need the incredible façade, anyway. Yada, Yada.
I’m reminded of scene in the original hilarious 1968 version of “Bedazzled” where “George Spiggot” [Peter Cooke as Satan] bemoans to “Stanley Moon” [Dudley Moore] the loosing of Mussolini’s soul because of a last minute ‘mille regrete’ for his sins. [As to Bedazzled…clips on YouTube?…is one of my all-time favs for poking at Catholic/Anglican, and Xtian dogma.]
I think the ‘bottom line’ of the whole last minute show by priests and ministers, is really a demonstration for the ‘peon masses’ of their supposed delegated POWER!
Yeah,…I agree with the judge…no special religious accommodations allowed!…Use the parking lot, Mr. “Father Big Shot”!
24 August 2006, on 12:59 am
A moderated site that has to approve responses to it’s own claims is first of all one sided to protect itself from media and answers they do not want others to hear instead of true and factual forum. True religion is unknown but the common thread of all religion is God and somewhere…sometime…that thread will sew together the love of Jesus we are all fighting so ridiculously about.
24 August 2006, on 1:05 am
Okay, I’ll be the voice of dissention and say that I think that whoever gave him the parking ticket is the fuckwad in this case, and the judge is a dick for not waiving it.
My reasoning: first of all it’s just shitty to give people parking tickets anyway, but especially shitty when they are clearly marked as being at a hospital for a compassionate reason (docs, clergy, other staff, etc). And, no matter what we may think of the Rev’s religion, the dying person had to request him to be there and it is an act of compassion to attend a dying person’s request. The judge is a dick for not recognizing that.
And lest you think I’ve jumped the fundy fence, let me clearly state that I’m not defending the Rev’s religion, nor his position as clergy. I couldn’t give a shit about that. Rather, I am defending the dying person’s wish to have the last rights. We treat dying people like shit in this culture and it pisses me off. We treat them like we’d rather they get it over with so we can on with our fucking business meetings and goddamn mother-fucking Starbucks lattes. I don’t care if that dying person had requested a full fucking mass at bedside. A person shouldn’t be punished (and quite pettily — a fucking PARKING ticket, for shit’s sake) just for attending to that.
24 August 2006, on 1:29 am
Miss Greg Pittman, I’m too tired to fuck with you right now except to say that no one asked for your opinion and dropping gawd or jeebus into a one-liner around these parts is an invitation to an asskicking. Anyone?
24 August 2006, on 3:44 am
Greg Pittman said:
Well, first off Greg, we moderate our site for two reasons: #1 being the large amount of spam that comes our way and #2 the amount of posts we get in flagrant violation of our posting policies. The intention is not to censor the free expression of ideas but to avoid the constant and repetitive tripe that finds its way here. Our intention has never been to protect ourselves from new ideas but to avoid harassment and preaching, which we get way too much of here.
Second, True Religion (TM), whatever the hell that is, is something which never holds up. Don’t believe me? Do a little digging around, I don’t feel like doing your homework for you (suggestion: look up “No True Scotsman” for a good start). Also, God and Jesus are constructs of the imagination and there has never been anything proven to say otherwise, other than circular logic.
24 August 2006, on 4:09 am
“My religion’s last rites involve strippers.”
Hey Mentat – are you Chinese? Check out the story below on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5280312.stm
24 August 2006, on 7:11 am
“a “Clergy on Call” badge in the window,”
Huh? Did he make that up? If God hadn’t wanted him to get a ticket then He would have zapped the traffic warden with a thunderbolt. Buy a parking ticket like everyone else.
24 August 2006, on 8:25 am
What the fuck is he so upset about? His congregation are going to pay for it anyway, not him.
24 August 2006, on 8:35 am
Good form, KR. Nice job.
24 August 2006, on 9:10 am
It does infuriate me how the clergy troll through the ICUs, sniffing around for death and pop in on families unwanted, like flies at a picnic. It’s a disgusting practice.
One I got well aquainted with last year while in the hospital twice hovering near death. Imagine being in the worst kind of pain, and then drugged up to stop the pain… and the priest saunters in.
My wife, knowing me, though, got rid of him.
24 August 2006, on 1:20 pm
To Audrey:
It’s an act of compassion for a person’s brother to visit them in hospital, but that doesn’t mean he get to ignore the parking rules.
Some gripe about parking enforcement?
24 August 2006, on 1:50 pm
My wife, knowing me, though, got rid of him.
Martian, Don’t take this the wrong way, but can I “borrow” your wife when it comes time for me to kick the ol’ tin can? Mine doesn’t have the good sense your’s does.
24 August 2006, on 3:05 pm
Check’s in the mail, KR!
25 August 2006, on 1:01 am
A friend of mine had a stroke a couple years back. At his hospital, the on-site religious person was an extremely lovely young woman, who was quite nice and not overbearing with the god stuff at all. More hospital preachers should be of that type.
25 August 2006, on 1:43 am
Strange that it is about the ticket and not whether the patient lived or died. Wot a you tink it meens?
Oh and I’m all for last rites being strippers and extremely lovely young women.
25 August 2006, on 11:48 pm
[...] I assume you’ve ignored the statistics which have shown that divorce rates are higher among xians. Furthermore, “being gay” was never ” a bad thing,” just an accepted form of discrimination, much like being black “was a bad thing.” It does not appear to me that the consequences, of breaking the law (man’s law), i.e.: going to jail, is a sufficient deterent to reduce the wrongs that people commit against each other. There was a time when you could leave your house unlocked and, when you returned, your stuff was still there! There was a time when people would help each other and not be in fear of being sued or something. [...]
14 September 2006, on 3:59 pm
I’m amazed nobody’s mentioned the trouble that could’ve happened if the priest took any longer. Obviously, it’s a “no parking” zone for a reason. What if an ambulance rushed over and they couldn’t get to the door as quick as possible because that goddamn priest decided to park in front of it? He could’ve ended up causing deaths, in that case. Where he parked might’ve been a firelane too, so if there was a fire… yeah, etc etc.
Sure, the dying woman had her right to see him. But if something had happened because the priest decided to put her needs above any other sick/injured person, I’m sure she would’ve felt worse than we could imagine… while she died. After all, for the sake of all involved, it’s “better safe than sorry.”