I grew up in a family where honesty and integrity were common values. We used to collect the church money and count it on our dining room table before Sunday lunch. My father was also the treasurer of the Czech Theatre Club.
He was simply the person who you trusted with money. We counted the collection every Sunday and rolled the coins and bagged the money. Of course earlier there was a team of men who counted the money. I don’t remember how it fell to us as a family, but we all just pitched in and did it. Sometimes the priest came to our house after mass and had breakfast with us. In fact, I remember vivid discussions of the local Catholic priest in our house with the Jehovah’s Witnesses who lived in our bungalo. There was never a feeling of prejudice or exclusion or arrogance, but a mutual respect. Even though we were in an unusually strong pocket of European Catholicism in the western suburbs of Melbourne, our community was quite unique in its international character and religious nature.