So, three months after her husband's assault, it comes out that Nancy Pelosi wants her house exorcised.

 I'm not sure if that's exactly how she put it, but that's how it was stated in the report I heard.

On the one hand, this is good.  Everyone should want their house blessed.

On the second hand, asking for an "exorcism" to drive out post-traumatic "negative energy" one might feel after what looks like a mundane home invasion by a violently mentally ill acquaintance--you know, that normal phenomenon of re-experiencing the feelings surrounding a painful event when reflecting on (or being "triggered" by) it--smells like one of those PR-tweaking performances that high profile people enact after realizing they've done something too alienating but are in truth too alien to hoi polloi, to the degree where their attempts to bridge the gap and garner empathy push people farther away.  

Think of when Mark Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress, and all the memes about him being a lizard person in disguise and trying to drink water not to calm himself but to appear more mammalian, which is a very non-mammalian way to go about it.  Or when a parent tries to be cool in front of their tween children, not realizing that whether or not they were cool themselves when they were younger, it's not something you can achieve by trying.

So it seems like just another part of her flawed campaign to appear a devoted Catholic, like all her "I love receiving communion like you other Catholics and I appreciate all the nuns at school who told me I could do that while still promoting abortion; what do 915 cannons have to do with anything?" talk.  She might be trying to fool voters or maybe just herself, like with her other publicity stunts such as that public act of repentance for being white she participated in during the Floyd riots where she wore "African colors" and went down on one knee but couldn't get back up.

But back on the first hand again, this could be the camel's nose in the tent of grace in her life.  Maybe she really was shaken up a bit and is reaching out in the only way she knows how, maybe all the prayers for her conversion and the end to her scandalous politicking are starting to pay off.

Let's hope and pray for more of that.

A question for anyone who has contemplated the notion that Benedict XVI retained some papal features after he resigned

 I'm not talking only to people who maintained this theory.  I'm just asking anyone who has thought about it enough to understand the contention.  For the record, this is a hypothetical question, it's been interesting to consider these past several years, but I both lean away from the notion and decline to take a stand--it seems to violate the intent of the Petrine office but it's a matter for experts to explain why my hunch would be right or wrong.

But I'm asking all of you anyway, just for curiosity.  Now that B16 has died, does his munus automatically devolve back to Francis?  Or does Francis not inherit it at all, since the bifurcation had already happened before his election?  If that's the case, would he just be pope without munus and only his successor would resume the power?  But what if Francis resigned too?  If he doesn't have it, he can't also give it up.

I know this is just a rabbit hole.  It's an interesting idea to play with.  But that should also tell us that maybe it's too bad of an idea to be true.