Lady of Mt. Carmel Church: The scene of the "crime."
Today, as I was running, I saw a dog on the grounds of the Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church, squatting on the grass, going to the bathroom.
I wanted to ask the dog if he was going to the bathroom because he just needed to go or if he had some kind of vendetta against God and the Catholic Church, but I knew that if even if he did tell me, I wouldn’t understand his answer.
Then I wanted to ask an animal-loving Catholic if he had to pick sides if he would choose God or the dog. What an inner-conflict that would create. Do you blame the dog for going to the bathroom on holy ground or God for allowing the dog to go to the bathroom there?
The dog doesn’t know any better because the dog was not created to get emotionally attached to humankind’s symbols of religion and spirituality.
However, God is the one that “created” dogs without that sensitivity chip. So if you blame the dog, then you blame God. But you can’t blame God because you’re a Catholic. So you have to blame the owner. But the owner wasn’t there to stop the dog and besides the owner was created by God too, right?
Ask yourself: Can you forgive a dog for defecating on a place as sacred as this?
Maybe some Catholics could take this as a sign that this particular church is to blame. After all, the Lady of Mt. Carmel is in the heart of a Boystown, Chicago. I’ve been told that it’s known for being accepting of the GBLT lifetstyle, which is rare among the Catholic culture. Some could look at that as a sign that gays are bad people, their evidence being an innocent dog’s natural instinct (which would be really crazy.)
If you’re someone who believes in reincarnation, you might believe that the dog was a person who hated Catholics in a past life. If you believe in that though, you’re probably not Catholic to begin with, so you’ve justified the dog’s action to support your own belief.
Luckily, I only have to go through mental anguish, hypothetically. I’m not a Catholic. I don’t believe in reincarnation in the literal sense. I’m not moved by any organized religion, so I never have to take sides.*
If I did have to choose sides, I’d have to go with the dog. Even though I’m not a dog lover, I feel I can understand them better. I look at a Catholic church and appreciate its beauty without thinking about all the bad and good with which it’s associated. I can also look at a dog s**ting on church grounds and appreciate it for believing in this universal truth:
“When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
So, my little robots, what do you think?
*Or maybe because of this, I’m the only one that does have to go through this mental anguish.
