Leeches

I wasn't the only one disgusted by this piece in the Toronto Star this morning on the Prayer Palace. If you've ever driven up the 400 and wondered what that saucer-shaped thing around Finch Ave was, now you know, it's a den of thieves parading as a church. The pastor and his family seem to live very comfortable lives - something that cannot be said of many of those attending the church. What's more, it appears that so many of the poor folk in this congregation are very generous:

"After worshipping at the Prayer Palace this morning, Hyacinthe Houghron will, as she does every second Sunday, stuff her tired green minivan with a small feast: six coolers of homemade soup, a mountain of sandwiches, cakes and sweets.

Loaded down with second-hand clothes pulled from the ceiling-high piles in her hair salon, she'll give out the goods to homeless people on downtown Toronto's grittiest streets.

Missions like this aren't cheap for people like her and other volunteers at the church. "We're poor folks," says Houghron, describing the majority of the 3,000-strong congregation who attend the spaceship-shaped church at Hwy. 400 and Finch Ave."