May 2, 2015 – St. Athanasius, Bishop, Confessor & Doctor
Double Feast
Independent Traditional Catholic Priest Bests Las Vegas
Stands up for His Traditional Catholic Church’s Civic Rights
From: The TRADITIO Fathers
Independent Traditional Catholic Priest Courtney Krier
Took on the City of Las Vegas
Which Wanted to Run His Church out of Downtown
By Installing Parking Meters in front of the Church
To Force His Congregants to “Pay to Pray”
Krier Took on the City and Won
No Parking Meters for His Church!
Independent traditional Catholic priest, Courtney Krier, showed how to stand up to government officials when he fought the City of Las Vegas, Nevada — and won. The city had attempted to charge for parking in front of his St. Joseph’s Traditional Catholic Church in downtown Las Vegas. City workers had started to bore holes to mount parking meters in front of his church. The planned meters were accompanied by a new sign telling congregants to “Pay to Park.”
Within three days, after Krier dunned the city, both the sign and any evidence of planned parking meters in front of the church had disappeared. Krier said that the city hadn’t consulted his congregation before starting work on the project, one he said would have amounted to making the faithful “pay to go to church.” Krier added that the city has been doing everything it can to drive churches out of downtown for years. An investigative report by the Las Vegas Review-Journalrevealed that the Las Vegas Parking Manager had been tasked with upping parking-meter revenue by 30 per cent in one year! [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.]
True Catholics, the example that we must follow in these times is that of St. Paul, who certainly didn’t “accept in silence” the predations of the officials of his time, both of Church and State, but confronted them and won many battles against the powerful Jewish Synagogue and the Roman Empire. St. Paul shows us what we can accomplish if we confront evil boldly and directly, with courage.