Random thoughts on a humid Sunday afternoon

• Some very bad storms swept though my area this weekend and we lost power from Friday evening to Sunday morning. When the power did come back Rocky and I both woke up and I sang a verse from "Witchita Lineman". The freezer thermometer read 40 degrees and the fridge thermometer showed it was in  the danger zone. I had throw everything out. Modern life is very fragile. 
  
  
  
•  I am very cautious about Leo XIV. He's not Francis, I mean he's polite, dresses like the pope and I'm sure he won't be smacking women in public but c'mon, you know the pope is more than optics. Time will tell if he's going to be okay. What will he actually teach? Will he get laicize Rupnik? Will he make an effort to get the bishops in Germany to act remotely Catholic?  I don't blame anybody who's wary and I don't take the hosanas from the Trad Inc. folks seriously either. 

• The Vatican is reportedly in bad financial shape. I read one report that claimed donations were down by 50%. Since most of the money comes from American Catholics, this means that even the Catholic who just comes to Mass on Sunday and not much else, even these folks were sick of the Francis show and ignored the usher when the Peter's Pence collection was being taken up. Possibly, Leo XIV, a middle of the road company man technically from America will be just the ticket for getting the coffers filled again.
  
  
  
  
• Speaking of money, after Sunday Mass, a member of the Finance Committee made a speech. She came to the point quickly, thank goodness. Unless offerings increase cuts are going to have to be made. A lot of people did not come back to the parish after Covid. You can insult them by calling them  lazy and weak but they were coming to Mass before and after being told that their spiritual lives would be just fine without Mass, I guess they believed it. Those live streamed Masses just didn't cut it. I remember feeling abandoned when my plea for a written religious exemption from the vaccine was ignored. How do all the people who had to watch their loved ones die with no priest to offer to  Last Rites feel? Every time I hear a member of the clergy or a parish official chide, however gently the people who didn't come back I feel myself becoming furious. 
  
  
  
  
• I try to buy from small Catholic businesses but some business owners don't make it easy. A while ago I bought a veil that, when I received it, did not look like what I ordered. The customer service was so bad it was insulting. I won't buy from that woman ever again. Two weeks ago, I bought a rosary and what I got was a disappointment. Whoever made it strung all the beads closely together with nothing to distinguish the Pater Noster beads from the Ave beads so if you pray in bed with the lights off you can't tell where the decade ends unless you were keeping count. Instead of metal the crucifix is very cheap and plastic. When I answered their survey and said that no, I'm not thrilled with their product and sent photos, they offered me no refund but did say I'd get 20% off my next purchase. No thanks. I think I would have done better if I'd purchased from a secular company that gets rosaries from China.