1st Holy Communion : a rite of passage too far?

by ipsiphi Thu May 21, 2009 23:10 Barcelona

"A survey, commissioned by EBS Building Society surveyed last March 1,000 parents in Ireland and, while 80% believed the downturn would have a negative effect on their children, only 27% thoughtit would reduce the amount of communion money received by children.
Nearly four-fifths of parents said it was appropriate to give €50 or less to a child making their communion. Some 14% said between €51 and €100 was appropriate with the remaining 7 per cent suggesting that over €100 was an appropriate amount of money."....."The average cash receipt for Irish children making their first communion was €463 last year"......"In Marion Gale’s Donnybrook communion outfitters & innocence chandling shop, the little white dresses range in price from €200 to €600 (taking into account factors such as lycra, child obesity & spangles), gloves cost €10, the tights another €8. Veils start at €25, although one with added sparkles costs €50! ( ask Michael Jackson if you don't believe how much the added sparkles and spangles puts you back , while handbags are €70. Gale’s prices are in line with other communion outfitters across the country and she does not accept Pricewatch’s suggestion that they are ridiculous sums to be spending on an outfit which will get a single wear – two or three at a stretch. She admits it is a “total extravagance” but says the money is well spent because it is “a day of light and hope amid all the gloom” and is one which brings families together..........
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/pricewatch/2009/051....html

Meanwhile in similarly economically striken & despite its best intentions folkoristically catholic Spain, the Consumers Union estimate the average cost of a Holy Communion stands at 3,600euros.
http://www.levante-emv.com/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2...risis

I recently turned down an invitation to such a travesty of hypocrisy in the conservatively Roman Catholic region of Valencia in Spain upon learning that I was expected to lodge 500euros into the bank account of the little brat to cheer him up, naturally because the good catholic parents who spawned him have since divorced and they had hoped to celebrate the communion on two seperate days in two seperate venues & you know the cost mounts up......... oh well the poor bugger had to deal without my contribution & I hope he turns out well nonetheless and gets over the shame of subquality canapés quickly enough.

If the * Christ had really died (and stayed dead) and thereafter not gone to heaven as we all mark solemnly on this Ascension weekend, I am pretty sure he'd be turning in his grave.
But He's+ in space just itching to come back & judge us. I know I shouldn't be pointing a finger when that happens but for the moment I'm feeling like the cats away & I really just want to read the list of the abusers' names.

let us congratulate ourselves as post-catholic societies that we have suceeded in making systematic child abuse and indentured servitude of unmarried mothers unfashionable!

let us now move on and make the first Holy Communion similarly uncool & maybe encourage these Catholics to give the money to orphanages in the third world so that people with darker skin can afford to hire non-paedophile staff.

by Bad Bob Mon May 25, 2009 23:16

Interesting article. My son made his communion recently. He told me between all of the relatives he got 1100 euro approx. From talking to his mother this is an average sum to get. His mother spent roughly twice that buying his suit and other communion related stuff. Not to mention the cost of the dinner afterwards. I got around £200 for my communion, it all went on paying the household bills in the 80's. Things have changed indeed. I didn't like the ceremony itself, lots of crap about God & the Church which i found highly ironic considering the report on the Industrial Schools last week. Along with the teachers & principal licking the arses of the parents. Fake would be my summation of the whole event.

by Jim Tue May 26, 2009 15:44

Little children are told to believe that the wine and the piece of wafer on the altar are turned into the actual flesh and blood of a 1st century carpenter.
It is pathetic that in the year 2009 that people still believe in such primitive bronze age nonsense.