"Santo Subito": It Doesn't Come Cheap
As if this readership's historic adornment of my Pharaoh with YouTube glory wasn't enough of a muscle-flex on your collective part for one week, you lot have yet again shown the world that your clout as an ecclesiastical flash-mob is simply nonpareil.
Both individually and as a group, you've all never ceased to amaze me, but this is just a whole new level: yesterday, you guys and gals kicked-off a cyber-surge that blew the Santo JP2 people away with relic requests, to the point of knocking their e.mail address out of commission for a bit....
What a week, gang -- what a week.
Buzz spread quickly after yesterday's post on the free cassock-bits offered by the organizers of The John Paul Cause, and word from Rome earlier today indicated that the Vicariate was downright inundated: 250 requests yesterday, over 600 today.
The increased demand has been such that the Magnificenzo's Postulation can no longer send the "ex indumentis" mini-swaths (which are for private devotion only as the late pontiff isn't yet beatified) on a gratis basis. Future requests will require a "small donation" to handle the postage -- or else the office responsible for Wojtyla's sainthood would have to pull a San Diego and, literally, go "bankrupt." And, really, who wants that?
"[W]ith such a demand and no donations to cover postage, there is no way they can send these cards to everyone," says Br Chris Gaffrey, a Franciscan theologian speaking for the office, where he works part-time. "To do so, it would literally cost them thousands of Euros daily and bankrupt the Office of the Postulation (whose budget isn't all that extensive to begin with). So, they had to make a decision to limit sending the cards to those who can send a small donation to cover the cost of postage."
So, say, US$3 or $5 sent over per request would seem to do the trick... not too much to ask, eh?
If you're planning to seek one of these out, please keep this in mind -- and, when you do, realize that when St JP is formally enrolled to the honors of the altar, the credit for getting him there will, in a way, yet again be yours.
Ben fatto, church -- well done, in all you do. And God love ya for it.
-30-
Both individually and as a group, you've all never ceased to amaze me, but this is just a whole new level: yesterday, you guys and gals kicked-off a cyber-surge that blew the Santo JP2 people away with relic requests, to the point of knocking their e.mail address out of commission for a bit....
What a week, gang -- what a week.
Buzz spread quickly after yesterday's post on the free cassock-bits offered by the organizers of The John Paul Cause, and word from Rome earlier today indicated that the Vicariate was downright inundated: 250 requests yesterday, over 600 today.
The increased demand has been such that the Magnificenzo's Postulation can no longer send the "ex indumentis" mini-swaths (which are for private devotion only as the late pontiff isn't yet beatified) on a gratis basis. Future requests will require a "small donation" to handle the postage -- or else the office responsible for Wojtyla's sainthood would have to pull a San Diego and, literally, go "bankrupt." And, really, who wants that?
"[W]ith such a demand and no donations to cover postage, there is no way they can send these cards to everyone," says Br Chris Gaffrey, a Franciscan theologian speaking for the office, where he works part-time. "To do so, it would literally cost them thousands of Euros daily and bankrupt the Office of the Postulation (whose budget isn't all that extensive to begin with). So, they had to make a decision to limit sending the cards to those who can send a small donation to cover the cost of postage."
So, say, US$3 or $5 sent over per request would seem to do the trick... not too much to ask, eh?
If you're planning to seek one of these out, please keep this in mind -- and, when you do, realize that when St JP is formally enrolled to the honors of the altar, the credit for getting him there will, in a way, yet again be yours.
Ben fatto, church -- well done, in all you do. And God love ya for it.
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 19:48
<< Home