Gift from on "high"
Melbourne, Aug 30 (ANI): A catholic priest, who claims that his back yard full of cannabis plants is a gift from God, has been placed under constant surveillance by police.
Father Cyril Papudov, of Petrich, Bulgaria, has been arrested seven times but police have never caught him actually cultivating the crop.
He insists that the cannabis seeded by itself and is part of God's gift of nature and nothing to do with him.
"There has been a great deal of suspicion over the years about what is going on with these plants," Daily Telegraph quoted police, as saying.
"He is a man of the cloth and so a lot of people don't want to think badly of him but frankly if someone has a huge crop of cannabis in their back garden it's highly unlikely they are just sitting there admiring its horticultural properties," the police added.
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I would suggest that his parishioners be very, very careful when he uses incense during Mass.
This is just too funny!! Although it is refreshing to see that he is trusted, and his garden is not being dug up and removed!
God Bless,
lizaanne
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"Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord!" Daniel 3:54
ROFLMAO!!
I copied/pasted your post and Fr. Toborowsky's comment on my own blog. You just can't make this stuff up!
A friend's uncle of mine mused at my testimony once of converting from a pothead to a young man discerning the priesthood. He pressed me with the similar point the priest in this post made that since marijuana is a plant that comes from God, that there was no need to think that I had to give up smoking pot throughout my conversion process. I reminded him that hemlock, too, is a plant from God. But, if we ingest hemlock, we die. Just because a plant was made by God doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with our ingesting it, in one way or another.
Now, why couldn't he be my pastor??
Is there any evidence to suggest he is ingesting it. Maybe he is just to busy doing priestly things to weed it out, especially if it is not a source of temptation to him. I've never seen canibus. Is it pretty? I know they used to make rope from it, so it does have uses that aren't sinful.
Cannibus is a weed. I do not know much about the climate in Melbourne, but in Jamaica, one of the reasons why it is legal, is not simply because it is part of the Rastafarian religion, but because it is nearly impossible to control it's growth once it starts growing. It would be like trying to make dandelions on lawns in spring illegal. Of course the way it's grown and what variety affects the THC (the drug that gets people high)level.
Again, just because it's there, it might not be that useful for recreational drug (or any for that matter) purposes. Much hemp (used for rope, paper, fabric) that is grown is grown so that it has very little or no THC. On the same note, drug dealers cultivate a certain varieties with higher doses of THC for selling.
We bought a farm here in southern Ontario (Canada not California) in 1980. The first spring hemp came up thickly, anywhere the soil was disturbed, around the barns. It took years to get rid of it.
Some people attributed it to the growing of hemp for rope in the early 20 th century. The word among the more adventurous young men in the neighborhood was that it was no good for other purposes.
Bill
Since this story comes from Bulgaria, I'm going to guess that the priest is actually Orthodox and not Catholic.
Ad RC: Don't get your hopes up too high. The majority of Bulgarians is Orthodox, but there is a small Catholic minority in Bulgaria. Bl. John XXIII was Apostolic Delegate to Bulgaria in the 1920ies. One of his tasks was to care for these forgotten Catholics. However, Cannabis was not on his "To do"-List.