Feb. 17, 2021

 South Africa will distribute unused doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to other African nations after a small trial failed to show that the vaccine could prevent mild or moderate cases caused by the local variant of the virus.  (good news, sharing, not wasting)

 

L’Opzione di Dio is, of course, a terribly misleading representation of the Catholic Church. For every Machiavellian prelate willing to stop at nothing to attain power – and, make no mistake, such figures aren’t entirely fictional – there’s probably a hundred quietly heroic missionaries, and pastors, and nuns, and lay activists, all pouring out their lives to serve the vulnerable and forgotten people of the world.

Feb. 20, 2021

Just a few words about what is coming. First, the government has relaxed, a bit, the restrictions of the lockdown, so that church services are allowed again, but not more than 50 inside and 100 outside. (that is not a problem with us at Savannah Park because we are a small community in any case.) and the restriction on buying alcohol totally has been modified to be Mon. to Thurs. 10am to 4pm. (Hospital staff were complaining of alcohol related cases clogging up their hospitals when they needed every bit of time and space for virus patients.)

So, I will be starting this Sunday, 21 Feb., with services at Savannah Park. We will combine ash wed. with first Sunday of lent. (most people here have to either walk or take public transport at night to come to an evening service, like Ash Wednesday, and they are being told to stay at home so as not to spread the virus, and they don’t have to be told at night because it is dangerous for those who have to walk as there are tsotsis (muggers and thieves)  along the way. One little girl, a student, was robbed of her cell phone and laptop and was stabbed in the process. She is a university student and needs these things for her studies. She is traumatized, and doesn’t know where to go to get help. Without her laptop she can’t do her studies. I have run out of funds to help people like her so it is just a tough situation.

I will also start with informal services at the hospital next week….Tues. 6am for the early birds and Friday 12 noon mostly for the admin. Staff. I told them I will also bring ashes for those who want.

The new liturgy that came from Rome for ashes says the priest prays a blessing  over the ashes, sprinkles with holy water, says the prayer over all present,…remember that you are dust and unto dust will return…..or…..repent and believe the good news (gospel). Then, so as not to touch anyone, instead of making a cross on their forehead with the ashes, he will sprinkle some on their heads. (ha, no consultation with the laity, especially women…. Some wear hair pieces, others, here in Africa, wear something like a turban called a duk. There is no way they can undo it to receive a sprinkling of ash. So, we shall see how we deal with this situation. Ha. I will let you know next time.

As for the pandemic, we have received some vaccines from India which have already started to be jabbed, and more from somewhere, Johnson and johnson, also being administered, starting with those on the front line. We, old timers, are waiting our turn, but I am not holding my breath. I know that we are streets ahead of other less developed countries and have some excellent doctors and scientists who will be trying to come up with a vaccine out of our own labs. Remember, the first heart transplant op was here in South Africa. It is further down the line in the health ministry where  there is chaos.

We had a president who, much like Trump, ran the country into the ground with some of his not well thought out new policies and appointments, and we are not trying to get back on some sort of normal track again, but it is difficult because he, like Trump, has his loyal followers, who refuse to accept the facts, coming from a special commission, that show clearly that he is guilty in many ways for the dire situation we are in now in South Africa.

Trump and Zuma are running on parallel lines here, both trying to discredit the normal institutions, like the constitutional court, for example, the constitutional court gave a decision that said that Zuma (the ex-president) must make himself available to the Zondo commission on the dates mentioned and is not allowed to keep silent, as this is necessary for the commission to get to the bottom of the allegations made against him or his administration when he was president.

He says, 1.   He doesn’t accept Zondo, the head of the commission, number two on the constitutional court (whom he himself appointed when he was president) because he is biased against him (without presenting proof---sound familiar?--) and he refuses to abide by the decision of the constitutional court, for the same reason, because it is biased against him—again with no proof….but going on to say that he respects the concourt but not the judges. Now what does that tell you. But, like Trump, among his followers, he is sowing seeds of doubt about most institutions in the country, the main one being the concourt.

 

So There is a lot of drams these days, as in the States. The newly elected president (both of them from the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa) is walking on eggshells. He was elected by a hair (Zuma thought that the had made sure that he would not be elected ) and, like Pope Francis with the Curia, he has to be very careful about all that he says and does since Zuma’s supporters and just waiting for him to make a gaff, and they will toss him out and take over to continue to run the country like the mafia. I will have to answer for these words one day as they become public as soon as they go into my blog.

As far as my health goes, I am A OK, except for the continuing spasms in my left leg which I just have to live with. BP is fine, no sugar, brain still works, more or less, can still drive (what a blessing), take a shower, get dressed, put my socks on (that can be an interesting procedure) and put my sandals on (I don’t wear shoes any more. I had to buy a pair when I went to my Aunt Rose’s 100^th birthday in 2019 in Chicago in Feb.—snow and ice, not good for sandals). They don’t have buckles but Velcro, which makes it easy for on and off.

 

Well, let this be enough for now. Poor Cruz, going to Cancun , sunning on the beach, when his constituents are burning their furniture to keep warm. A real  stupid move for an opportunist like him.

Have a fruitful lent, some serious housecleaning. Love and Peace,   Fr. Cas

 Feb. 4, 2021

Let me share some thoughts with your about the “bipartisan” offer made by the republicans to the Biden team. If I remember correctly,  a team of Republicans came up with an offer of doing a bipartisan thing by having an economic recovery bill of $600 billion. It is less than half the amount that the Biden team had thought was necessary to help people and get the economy going again with $1.6 Trillion. Quite a big gap between what the Rebs were suggesting as a bipartisan effort to help struggling people and get the economy back on track.

     I think I smell something. As I see it there are three things to be considered here. 1. Time…urgency   2. Bipartisan..The Rebs reminded Biden that he promised to try to work together with them and this is his chance.. 3. What to do to help people…( wasn’t there a bipartisan bill that was put before Trump when he was still president. A bill for $900 billion, that both the dems and the rebs agreed on…. A miracle.  Then Trump refused to sign it saying that the $600 that was being offered to people wasn’t enough, it should be $1200.   Well, then the dems, now that they had Trump on their side, decided not to settle for less than what the rebs leader had suggested, and the whole thing never got off the ground, because the rebs would neve agree to the increase. Maybe I am wrong but I thought that the bill was never passed so people are still suffering.

Then, some cash into the hands of those who were unemployed, had lost their jobs, and health insurance, etc. and couldn’t pay for food, or rent or electricity (winter—heating). Then they would be able to use this money to buy the necessities and the economy would begin to function again. But that would mean lots and lots of money, more than the rebs were offering in their proposal to the dems.

Because of the necessity for doing something now now, there was no time for having long discussions to see where the rebs intended to cut back on the spending. People need help now, even yestermonth.

So if Biden refuses the offer, he is made to look bad because he claimed to want to build unity and bipartisanship, and look , he just turned down the offer.

He also had promised to help the people to get back on their feet, so if he doesn’t do something, he reneges on his promise there. Another disaster.

It is a lose lose situation for the dems.

Then the nuclear option comes up to look them in the face.

Ai think it was a deliberate trick to make Biden look bad. Maybe I am wrong, but that is how I see it. I am waiting to see what they are going to do now. Time is of the essence since people are really at the end of their tether

 

Feb. 2, 2021

The U.S. economy will return to its pre-pandemic size around the middle of this year, according to a new forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — even if Congress does not approve any more pandemic aid. But it will be years before everyone thrown out of work by the pandemic can return to employment.

The brightening outlook is a result of large sectors of the economy adapting better and more rapidly to the pandemic than expected, as well as increased growth from a $900 billion economic aid package that Congress passed in December.

 

The budget office expects the unemployment rate to fall to 5.3 percent at the end of the year, down from an 8.4 percent projection in July. The economy is expected to grow by 3.7 percent this year.

Stimulus response: President Biden met with Republican senators who are pushing for a much smaller alternative to his $1.9 trillion stimulus bill to address the toll of the pandemic. Administration officials warned that he wouldn’t accept their scaled-down proposal.   This seems very optimistic to me but I hope it is true. But aside from that, today, I was sleeping soundly, under two light blankets (it has been hot here lately so I have been sleeping without any covering except, perhaps, in the early morning, a sheet covering, but yesterday it got very cool and it was a great night for sleeping) and when the alarm went off, I really didn’t want to get out of bed, and changed to alarm to get another 15 minutes in  even though I had to cancel part of my usual pre-mass routine. Ha. It was soooo nice.   A few other things have been happening since my last posting on Jan. 13. One of the old timers, here, (92 yrs old) asked me to take him to the bank to do some work on merging his German accounts and his SA accounts. Believe it or not, I took my portable urinal along because I know that where the banking complex is in this shopping mall, it is faaaaar from the nearest toilet and I need a tree about every hour. Sure enough, it took him and hour and a half to get through his stuff. Can you, in the States or Europe, imagine taking an hour and a half at the bank? Anyway, the urinal saved me as I ducked out knowing that it was going to be a disaster if I didn’t. The joys of old age. Luckily, there was no one around when I had to do my thing, nature doesn’t wait. All’s well that ends well. We lost two priests (one a bishop) to the diocese of Durban (Bishop Gabuza and Msgr. Paul Nadal) two really great people. Gabuza was young, less than  65 and Nadal was a year older than me, and fit fit. But that didn’t stop the virus. We also lost a young seminarian, just about to be ordained a deacon, 31 yrs. old, to the virus. Thandoyenkosi Ngwenya, a Zimbabwean. Thandoyenkosi is a pagan name meaning, The will of the Lord. I am being sarcastic. In the old days the priest might not have allowed him to be baptized If he only had a pagan name (meaning a Zulu name) but must take a Christian name like Ferdinand (which would probably never be remembered by his family as he would still be called by his so-called pagan name, meaning, he was born because of the will of the Lord. How pagan can you get. The virus is going wild here. Our hospital, St. Mary’s , recently having lost its Catholic identity and become a government hospital, has turned its Marian wing (maybe about 45 beds, mostly 2 bed wards and one bigger 8 9r 10 bed ward) into a covid wing. The Marian wing, in the apartheid days was the white wing where everyone had insurance coverage, and those patients helped to pay for the rest of the hospital with its African patients who had no coverage, and little money to pay for medical help. But now it is all government and struggling (we are still trying to find donors to make up for what the govnt doesn’t pay).  The husband of one of my favorite nurses phoned me to ask me to come to give him wife, suffering from covid, the sacrament of the sick. It was 11 am. I said I would come at 2pm, but would first ask Maureen to organize things for me (Maureen is the head nurse at the hospital). When I phoned her and explained my plan, she said she refuses to let me go to the Marian wing because it is full of covid and the risk is too great, almost a certainty. I phoned her husband to explain and he said that he understood. (What was I ordained for, I was asking myself).  As it turned out, her husband also got the virus and both of them wound up on one of those 2 bed wards. He died of covid and she just barely pulled through. The only good thing about this is that she was able to be with him, pray with him, support him, encourage him, etc. right up to his last breath (so she said). That is a blessing that is denied of most dying covid patients. I visit the hospital at least twice a week just to pray for the staff and patients, trying to make myself visible as I go to the chapel to pray, hoping that my presence reminds them that we are in Gods hands and that I am on duty when I come to pray. The chapel is straight in from the main door so there is no danger of meeting corona, I hope. But I had better put this in the blog for now or I will forget again till the end of Feb. I have some other things on my mind as well. See you next time.