Urbi et Orbi
For only the second time in my third of a century on the Earth, the Holy See is sede vacante, that is, the throne of Saint Peter is vacant. His Holiness Benedict XVI is now pope emeritus & the Church Militant is under the regency of the College of Cardinals until those same Princes of the Church meet in conclave to elect the next Bishop of Rome, the Apostolic Successor of Saint Peter. In an interesting coincidence, on the Sunday before Pope Benedict announced his resignation (abdication would be a better word, though that's verboten since we no longer speak of the coronation of the Holy Father) & retirement I prayed to the Lord Almighty thanking Him for protecting the Church from wicked popes for the last several centuries & asking Him to preserve her from wicked popes in the future. These pleas are not amongst my routine prayers & the memory of them promoted raised eyebrows when two days later the pope announced his plans to step down. Were superstition not a sin I might well describe the coincidence as "spooky."

I am attending a two-day (day & a half) retreat at my church on Saturday & Sunday, entitled Christ Renews His Parish (C.R.H.P., or "Chirp"). It's boosters, though scarcely disinterested parties, describe their own participation as "life changing." My usual attitude toward change echoes the stock trader from The Dark Knight Rises, "Wayne coming back is change. Change is either good or bad. I vote bad." But I must change my life if I am to break this self-defeating cycle in which I've trapped myself, must change my thinking if I am to lead a better Christian life. We shall see what changes Chirp can affect.

Th€ R€b€£ B£a¢k Dot $ong of th€ Da¥
Dropkick Murphys, "Worker's Song" from Blackout (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The Murphys' class-struggle economic analysis is tired, tiresome, & simplistic to the point of uselessness—embracing the self-serving malarkey that corporate attorneys & stock traders who spend eighty hours a week virtually shackled to their desks, never seeing their young families, are not "working" because they aren't wearing coveralls & aren't greasing the giant gears from some Soviet-inspired, W.P.A.-funded mural—but their rage is useful to this week's theme. Capitalism, even under the best of circumstances, prompts both rage & outrage; this discontent should not be ignored, lest it fester into something altogether more destructive.

"And we're always the last when the cream is shared out,
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about!"