Sanctuary Voting and other Announcements

The main topic from the pulpit today was my explaining our options for voting for sanctuary renovations. This recording though also includes the announcements because I gave an impassioned and somewhat stern commentary on the Bishop's Appeal for Vocations collection. If you're not in our diocese, or if you already gave generously, you can skip to 4:13 on the recording. Otherwise, listen to it and then skip ahead.

The recording is from Saturday evening's Mass, but there were a couple of questions after that Mass and so I added two more points to the homilies on Sunday morning. I will add the text of those clarifications right here:

Two questions came up after the Mass last night:

Who can vote? Most places would say “adults in the parish family”. And by that we mean, those who are past high school. Whether they live at home or are off at school, they can vote. If they are still in high school, they don’t get too. Sorry about that, but you have to draw a line somewhere, and that seems easier than at “age 18”, where half the high school seniors would be able to vote, and the other half not.

Another question that came up, and it goes along with the idea of matching colors and styles: If we do either Option 1 or 2, what do we do about our current stained wood main altar? Won’t it not match? Correct, the dark wood and the white paint would not match, but the companies who are offering Option 1 and 2 are both willing to make a matching white front altar if we want one.

And if you only want to read the text of the homily, it is substantially the same as the letter on the website where parishioners can go to vote.