One of the first steps to cleaning out my hoarder grandparents' kitchen is to throw away the three hundred thousand mailers from charities asking them for money. My grandparents don't have one cent that isn't spoken for three times over already, so it makes me really grumpy to see them constantly set upon with pictures of children with clubbed feet and hair lips along with pleas to relieve their suffering, basically using their own sympathy to extort them.
The same applies to the myriad Catholic orders who do the same, only making a weapon of their faith. I want to tell them to please stop sending my grandparents requests for money they can't afford to do without.
I consider the various marketing techniques employed, many very effective: free gifts, offers for prayers and masses to be said in your honor and cheap religious jewelry and paraphernalia. Bribery and guilt are especially effective. "Here are some Christmas cards, but you'll feel bad sending them without giving us your money first!" This one says don't open this candle; mail it back to us with your donation and we'll light it for you with prayers. Well, why did you go to the trouble of mailing it to us if you just wanted it mailed back to you? Oh yeah! Because having us hold the candle in our hands is a more effective marketing ploy than just telling us about the candle. I had hoped that a two thousand year old church would operate with more dignity than a paperback book club. Tell ya what: I'm just gonna burn it... in a satanic ritual. How you like that?
You know, Satan may have tempted Eve, talked Pilate into crucifying Jesus and caused a ruckus in heaven, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't manipulate the widow's mite from my grandmother's feeble, impoverished hands. Even he has standards.
[Somewhere the devil is looking at these saintly envelope stuffers and shaking his head, "That's low, bro"].
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