That‘s right, boys and girls! B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets are coming to town in two weeks. My close personal friends in the Secret Service are positively giddy over the chance to order around mass numbers of innocent tourists, and we're all checking out the Popemobile routes to see where we can catch a look at The Top Dog Himself.

It sure won't be at the Papal Mass at Nationals Park. The bishops on both sides of the Potomac gave out a limited number of tickets to parishes, which were to be distributed by lottery. That's what the Catholic press says. Yeah, right. Trust me, those puppies were already spoken for the minute they came off the press. If you gave up a career teaching in public schools for doing the same at a parish school, if you've been cleaning and pressing the altar linens unselfishly for the last twenty or thirty years, or if you're a wealthy benefactor upon whom Father can depend in the clinch -- well, chances are one of those little gems already has your name on it.

At least that's the word on the street. Personally, I don't have a problem with such patronage. Really, not even a little bit. In fact, I can make a case that all of the above deserve it, since there never enough Papal Knighthood honors to go around. I just wish The Powers That Be were honest about it with the rest of us. Hey, a guy can dream...

For this week's Friday Afternoon Moment of Whimsy, the folks at mwbh just want to send that cheap shot across the bow. It's our little way of telling them how much we're thinking of them.

And how much we're on to them.

[UPDATE: I found out that our sacristan got tickets for herself and her husband. I couldn't be happier if I got tickets for myself. I probably would have given them to her anyway. Deo gratias.]
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