What would Jesus do? He certainly wouldn’t spray water on the homeless.

March 24, 2015 • 11:55 am

Suppose Jesus came back (that’s assuming he existed, and as God’s son, neither of which I accept—but run with the thought), and found a Catholic church spraying water on homeless people sleeping on its steps, with no other purpose than to displace them? WWJD? He’d certainly cleanse that church as he’s said to have done with the moneychangers in Jerusalem’s Temple. He’s turn that watering system into fig trees or something. If there’s no other lesson that’s consistent in the New Testament, it’s that we should have mercy on the poor and downtrodden.

But, in fact, such a spray-the-homeless church exists, at least according to Talking Points Memo:

A Catholic cathedral in San Francisco installed a watering system in an attempt to soak homeless people who try to loiter and sleep near its doorways, radio station KCBS reported on Wednesday.

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, which, the radio station reported, is the main church within the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the home of the archbishop, has four tall side doors which are used as sheltered nooks by homeless people in the city.

While the church has “No Trespassing” signs, the watering system doesn’t come with a warning and the showers rain down throughout the night, KCBS reported.

The spigot is 30 feet up on the ceiling of the doorway alcove and when it spews water, the alcove and unsuspecting homeless people reportedly get soaked. According to KCBS, the water runs for about 75 seconds every 30-60 minutes.

“We’re going to be wet there all night, so hypothermia, cold, all that other stuff could set in,” a homeless man named Robert told KCBS. “Keeping the church clean, but it could make people sick.”

KCBS reported that the water system doesn’t in fact keep the alcoves clean and in fact pools on the steps and nearby sidewalk since there’s no drainage system installed.

A staff member at the cathedral reportedly told the radio station that the showers were installed about a year ago for the purpose of keeping homeless people away.

Here’s their explanation:

Archdiocese spokesman Chris Lyford told KCBS that the church refers the homeless to charities for housing but noted that they keep coming back.

“We do the best we can, and supporting the dignity of each person,” he said. “But there is only so much you can do.”

Well how about refraining from drenching them, for crying out loud? Does it dignify a homeless person to turn them into sodden wrecks?

The TPM site has a video supposedly showing the watering system, but I can’t see very much.

christ-driving-the-merchants-from-the-temple

h/t: Gingerbaker

47 thoughts on “What would Jesus do? He certainly wouldn’t spray water on the homeless.”

  1. If there’s one thing I get from the Jesus character in the Gospels, it’s that he’s one really nasty motherfucker who’d torture his own mother to death if she didn’t kiss his ass in just the right way.

    Considering all the “kill all my enemies” this and “I bring not peace but a sword” that and rip families asunder the other and gouge out your eyeballs and hellfire and damnation and all the rest…

    …considering all that, I view his few pleasantries and make-nice gestures to be no different from the charity wings of any terrorist organization. Sure, it’s good that Hamas and the IRA and the Vatican and DAESH feeds orphans or what-not…but does that really matter considering all the evil they do?

    So, my bet is that Jesus would find some charismatic homeless person in the lot, wash her hair under the sprinklers and send her off to her rehab meeting with a kiss on the cheek…and then hook the sprinkler line up to a gasoline tank and incinerate the next poor bastard who tried to muscle in on Jesus’s turf.

    b&

  2. One comment on this news story (spotted elsewhere – reddit?) was a bit telling: The church was doing the soaking during one of the worst droughts (global warming induced?) in California history. So much for the church’s stewardship of god’s creation(s).

    1. Indeed.

      I’d bet that many baby-crazed, contraception-phobic Catholics would also share Mr. Scrooge’s attitude about how to deal with the surplus population, which, perversely, they themselves have created.

  5. Last summer my husband and I attended Netroots Nation in Detroit. One of the sessions ran until rather late in the evening and our usual route back to our hotel was barricaded, so we took a different one, sort of following a group of people who seemed to know their way. It led through the grounds of the Mariners Church (the one in the Gordon Lightfoot song) and there were homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, in the bushes, on the steps and in the doorways of the church. I live in a rural area and although I have seen the homeless in cities before, this was more up close and personal than usual, and all I could feel was sorrow and compassion for these people with their garbage bags of belongings and such. I cannot imagine drenching them with water and making their lives even more miserable.

  6. This news report states that the church allows the homeless to sleep elsewhere on the grounds, and that the church was responding to feces, needles, condoms, etc. left in the alcoves. youtube.com/watch?v=8LLx-GyVY-E

    Not sure this justifies the sprinklers, but it does seem like it should not be left out of the story.

    1. Well, then, here are some other facts that perhaps should not be left out of the story:

      The Vatican is sitting on something like a trillion dollars or more in off-shore secret bank accounts; they pay no property taxes on that property where the Archbishop lives; and they supposedly have a mission to help the poor – which is why their contributions don’t have to be reported, and why they pay no property taxes.

    2. In which case why were notices not posted indicating (a) there were sprinklers and (b) where the church was housing the homeless.

  7. If Jesus came back, and assuming he had not kept up with events on Earth for the last 2000 years, I think he would go to a synagogue and after the service he might remark, “By the way, who are those strange people in the fancy building spraying water on people? I gather it’s a Jewish splinter group of some sort. Don’t tell me that’s their version of my baptism idea!”

    1. I have a friend who lives on Kauai and he told me he was thinking about moving to Cali. I told him to look into the drought and think hard on it. I think he may end up in Northwest Oregon.

      I was born in San Jose and have a lot of family in the Bay Area, so I hope this drought doesn’t continue. Not very optimistic about it though. Ironically, many of my relatives are born agains and thus don’t believe in climate change- especially anthropomorphic. Denying proof that is right in front of your face is beyond ignorant. Religion poisons everything as the Hitch would say.

  9. If they don’t want homeless people befouling their fancy building, paid for with tax free dollars, then stop taking credit for being charitable and a friend to the poor.
    As intellectual honesty goes, the followers of this Jesus character leave a lot to be desired.

  10. This is all in the mother teresa tradition that Hitch loved so much. You will only appreciate the wonder of g*d if you are suffering sufficiently.

  12. What is odd is that the Church knows exactly who they are hosing down, and what will happen to those who do the hosing. According to Mathew Chapter 25, the Church officials will end up in eternally punished!

    Here are the relevant verses, with the ‘King’ not being Elvis, but Jesus.

    34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 36I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

    37“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? 39When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

    40“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,f you were doing it to me!’

    41“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.g 42For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. 43I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

    44“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’

    45“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

    46“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

    2. For I was thirsty, and you soaked me for 75 seconds every 30-60 minutes in the middle of a drought.

  13. “We do the best we can, and supporting the dignity of each person…”

    Well, except the altar boys.

    …he said. “But there is only so much you can do.”

    You had to hire a plumber and get him to specifically install a sprinkler system to douse homeless people. I’m not buying the handwringing powerlessness schtick here; this was an active and costly choice you made. A policy decision you had to choose to implement, not merely a social ill you don’t have the resources to prevent.

    1. Maybe you do not understand. They must protect the value of the tax free property they have here. After all, this is San Fran, some of the highest priced per sq. in. in all the kingdom.

    2. If you can declare bankruptcy to avoid paying the victims of your sexual abuse, if you can spend centuries oppressing women, if you can protect child abusers from the law, if you can fail to excommunicate a single Nazi for committing war crimes but instead help them to escape, if you can beatify Mother Teresa, if you can excommunicate women for leaving abusive husbands, if you can scare millions children with tales of hell, if you can allow hundreds of thousands to suffer and die from HIV/AIDS because using a condom is a greater sin, if you can convince billions of people not only that God exists, but is good, using the Bible as evidence, despite it being clear from the Bible he’s pretty evil, what’s putting the lives of a few homeless people at risk?

      And every person reading this, including me, could come up with dozens more examples of the RC Church’s revolting behaviour.

      2. Yeah, well said- nothing that the RC Church does shocks me anymore. That ship has sailed. Just add this to another of their outrageous hypocrisies.

        Nice hats be damned. 🙂

        1. I’d quite like to have a go at wearing the pope’s robes, sans hat – it mitre fall off if I behave in an unwomanly manner!

          3. Are there cardinals in the Philippines? I thought they were continental North American birds. Perhaps some form of convergent evolution…?

            b&

  14. What? Moral failure in the Catholic church? Wow. Caught me by surprise. Ironic, to, it looks like the journalists are in a position to shame the clergy. I would hope they would take this practice up full time.

  15. It’s ended. City officials got on their case and told them to cease and desist from wasting water. Allegedly, the pipes have been turned off and are in the process of being removed.

    This was a symbolic piss-on-the-poor act by the church.

    1. Too literal example of the trickle-down effect, by which the super-rich are always trying to justify pissing on the poor.

  16. They seem to have forgotten 2 things – 1 Mark 13:35, and 2) Ye know not when the reporters cometh.

    Great fodder for comics though.

  17. Maybe they should convert half of the property in question into apartments for the homeless.

    Perhaps the city should do the same with a few of its brick and mortar assets.

    Or maybe some “social entrepreneur” can find a way to make a buck (off the taxpayers) being altruistic, eh? 😉

    1. That was their plan. They just started with the showers.

      Oh.

      Showers.

      Joe Blake: [noticing ashes falling like snowflakes] What is that?
      Nazi Police Officer: Oh, that’s the hospital.
      Joe Blake: The hospital?
      Nazi Police Officer: Yeah, Tuesdays, they burn cripples, the terminally ill. Drag on the state.

      — Man In the High Castle (TV series)

      /@

      1. There’s a TV series? O Mi Gato! […googles…] Ah, I see. I hope it turns out OK, and doesn’t diverge into twaddle like so much TV does.

  18. It isn’t just that they don’t pay property tax, they don’t pay for the water either. At least not in Chicago yet, don’t know about other states. As commenter still learning above noted, it is wasting water. They don’t get a water bill here and run the sprinkler system to the grass non stop all summer long. We do not have an unlimited supply of water to be wasting this way. The best way to get the church to conserve water is to make them pay for it since they don’t seem to understand the value of it. They have car wash fundraisers at our expense. Running the water like mad. Leaving the hoses running between cars. How can they care about the environment when they do these things?

    1. Rather than wasting the water in a car wash, they could always sell it. Get a priest to bless it. Holy water. There’s value added. Could make quite a bit of cash if there’s a water shortage, and the more they sell the more they use, the bigger the shortage and the more they can charge.

      Geez I should patent that idea. Or stand for Pope.

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