This piece on Old St. Mary's in DC is interesting but left me a bit unsettled. My godmother, was one of those little old ladies who attended the Monday novena and one of my earliest memories is going to St. Mary's with her and looking up at the Pieta statue with awe. The author of the essay says everything was gray and depressing. I thought that old church was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Old women like my godmother and the Chinese parishioners who kept the parish going deserved more respect than the essay gives. They weren't famous or rich but they had souls to save and they faithfully attended back when walking alone in Chinatown in the morning or night was dangerous. Cardinal Gregory, it's been whispered has turned a jaundiced eye towards the parish and in the end, it must might be those frumpy, uninteresting, old nobodies who save the parish again.
If you are a prepper it's time to go dark about it. If your family and friends haven't learned to plan for emergencies by now, they won't.
I have found that it's best to skip reading Fr. Z. unless I want a pasta recipe because I just end up irritated and a little sad but I noticed on Canon 212 that Fr. blasted Gloria TV for reporting a story about a confraternity that turned a church in Rome into a dinning hall for a few hours in order to feed the needy. Father Z is in Rome eating and drinking and posting cute travel videos. Why he got upset with Gloria TV, which is not a minor Trad site , by the way, for noting while yes, we should and are commanded to care for the poor, reducing the house of God, which should be for His worship, to a feeding station is a mystery to me. My only guess is that Fr. feels this way because the confraternity is affiliated with the FSSP and you're a bad Trad if you don't cheer for absolutely everything any FSSP priest does. I think that's baloney. Also Rome apparently doesn't have any parish halls or civic centers the confraternity could have used to do this. Sure..... I hope the Blessed Sacrament was removed for the event but neither Gloria TV nor Fr. Z. said so.