Pastor’s Corner — September 25th, 2022
Parish Festival Oktoberfest, Next Weekend (Sunday October 2nd)
Please plan on coming to our family friendly event which includes bounce houses, obstacle courses, beer brewed by parishioner-owned Eternity Brewing, Tommy Schober and the Sound of Sorgenbrecher German band, and German food. We will also be drawing tickets at the end for our Annual Parish Raffle. (Don’t forget to turn in your tickets in the white barrels at the entrances in the Church by that day). I hope to see you there!
Attention City of Brighton Residents: Unlimited Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries are on the Ballot this November
A proposal for an unlimited number of recreational marijuana businesses to open in the City--with no buffer zones at all on the locations of these shops to many youth oriented facilities, including our parish—will be on the ballot this fall for City of Brighton Residents. This is the same issue I’ve written about before. Essentially this got on the ballot because big money out-of-town marijuana businesses are forcing this issue to the voters after our City Council successfully voted it down. According to the Protect Brighton Youth website:
“In 2022, 4 years after state legalization, still only 7% of Michigan’s 1777 municipalities/townships/villages have “opted in” to allowing marijuana businesses. 92% are still opted out. Opting in is against the norm, and risky. Based on Brighton family-friendly values and goals, peer communities Brighton should emulate would include Plymouth, Northville, and Birmingham - all of whom have continued to opt out.
According to the website, this out-of-town proposal allows:
• Unlimited number of shops in Brighton (there are already 40 dispensaries within the neighboring cities of Brighton)
• Marijuana on Main Street
• Extreme marijuana potency (up to 20x stronger than “Woodstock Weed”)
• Walk-up and drive-up windows with potential 24/7 operation
• Increased traffic and parking issues and increased enforcement costs
• A negative influence on Brighton youth
I’m very proud of several of our parishioners who have spearheaded this website and campaign to get the word out to Brighton City voters about this initiative.
After Masses this weekend, we have a table with materials to explain the proposal in more detail and to provide information on the physical and mental dangers to youth. Since this proposal is a danger to our youth and detrimental to our community, I strongly encourage Brighton City residents to vote NO on this ballot proposal.
Proposal 3 Links and Attorney Rebecca Mastee Speaking Event at St Pat’s (Oct 8)
In addition to the official website on Proposal 3 (www.supportmiwomenandchildren.org), and physical information on the table in the Gathering Space here is some important recent digital information about Proposal 3:
• What is Proposal 3 (short video) - Rebecca Mastee, attorney and public policy expert from Michigan Catholic Conference
• Too Confusing, Too Extreme (short video) - a good 30 second ad about this
• Newest Faith Magazine Issue on Proposal 3 (digital flipbook)- This is very good and has excellent information.
• Michigan Catholic Conference (Focus Issue) on Proposal 3 - This is probably the best resource out there at the moment. It has line by line rebuttals of supporters of the amendment and even has a side-by-side summary of the proposed amendment and the actual text of the amendment. This amendment would be terrible on so many levels.
We’re going to be hosting attorney and public policy expert Rebecca Mastee here at St Pat’s on Saturday October 8th at 7:00 PM at the PLC for an information session on the proposal. I hope to see you there!
The NET Missionaries are Here!
At the Masses this weekend you’ll see the National Evangelization Team (NET) missionaries in blue shirts. Please welcome them to St Pat’s when you get a chance.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias