That's a stretch.

 

Yeah, I think it has to do with people that Father Gabriel turned away and kept out of the safety of the church. That's much more plausible than people who are being taken over by walkers having time or the presence of mind to carve a message into the outside of the church. I just can't imagine that even being possible.

 

The poster concentrated on the building, which he doesn't but I can see the importance of religion at the apocalypse and the reaction to being shut out of the church. But even if you eliminate shelter, there is all the food hoarding his girlfriend and the others that would definitely draw the you'll burn for this response.

 

This should all be explained this Sunday, looks like it'll be a very good episode.

 

i think it was his mother. that he turned his mother away. The message was probably carved into the church but not while zombies were chasing people. whoever carved that, probably carved it after they realized he wasn't letting them in. no reason why he had to be at the doors hearing them all die.

then who knows what the connection is between what he knows and the food bank? meaning like did he just know that the people he rejected would end up there and probably be dead? or was he visiting the food bank and taking cans from it and running back to the church and locking himself up? or did he have a more active role? could be anything. but it does seem like he was afraid to see what was in the food bank and whatever he was afraid of was confirmed for him.

 

And after being refused sanctuary at the church, made one that provides food and shelter to any that arrive.

 

Maybe he was having an affair with a woman and her husband scratched it on the wall. When he was locked out with everyone else. Or the woman herself scratched it when he wouldn't let even her inside the church.

 

Evenly written/grammatically correct and on the side of the building (not on the door). The reason/spoiler still doesn't add up for me either.

 

I was watching Season 5 again today and saw the scratches. Like most of you, I had originally wondered why the hell would someone have bothered to scratch "you'll burn for this" in the side of the building. I would have tried prying open the shutters instead of just scratching the side of the building, I also would have tried kicking down the front door (which was more or less undamaged when we first see it).

Watching again, I think Gabriel scratched it into the building himself. The guilt would have been eating away at him forever, and he knew the evils he had done.

Also, unrelated to this, when Carol is flipping through the pages that Gabriel had written, I noticed where she stopped. Gabriel had been writing the Bible from the beginning. You only see it for a second or two, but Gabriel had written the "earth was without forme", and in a line or two later, the "Spirit of God mooued". I had to look it up to realize that this was the original 1611 King James version. That seemed like a weird choice to make for such an insignificant detail.

 

As far as we know now, he's a dumb coward who left everybody outside for the Walkers. I hope he get Dale'd soon.