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When they started coming out with Pope John Paul II statues he was almost dead, and had been in office for over 20 years.  But see how far we have come!  Now, the new guy hasn't even been in office for one year, and they've already got a statue out.  

Oh, but it gets better!  It's on SALE!!  HALF PRICE!!  Such a DEAL!!




New for spring 2014 -- Pope Francis Statue, VS235, Sale $9.99

This is not any two-bit outfit.  It is Autom, the longstanding leader in church supplies in the USA.   If you think Cotter is big, well, Autom is a supplier for Cotter, not the other way around.

Nor is this showing up to be an unpopular item..  My catalog just arrived in the mail, and it has no indication of any supply problem, but the Autom website has "Back ordered until April 30, 2014."  

From the linked order page:




Pope Francis Statue

$20.00
Only $9.99

Item: #VS235
Material: Resin
Size: 8" H
Availability: Back ordered until Wednesday April 30, 2014


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Can use me a few of them statues- can think of some real practical uses for them right off the top of my head.  :smash-pc:

Will not be buying.  Less Francis the better.

For GLBT priest- they also sell a pretty "rose' vestment robe. It looks pink, but let us just say rose.

Do a search on their site for it "Cross with Grapes Dalmatic'

It is beautiful, only 90% polyester. Good for trapping in those body odors.

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Chinese factories are built to be versatile, and the workers are trained to adapt quickly to new operations, such that in one given day, an assembly line worker might handle one step in an operation to produce portable electric ovens for three hours, DVD players for two hours, antique-looking wall clocks for two hours, and finally Pope Francis statues for three hours.  That's ten hours, but they don't get any overtime.  The reason they spend so long on the statues is, there's a backorder until April 30th, not May 1st.  By February they'll know if they need to keep producing Francis for 2 or 3 hours a day, depending on the updated backorder status.  All these products are shipped to Port of Los Angeles, in San Pedro.  That's PEE-dro, not  PAY-dro.  Because if you're not Yugoslavian or Italian then you're a FOREIGNER.  The containers are the same, the docks are the same, the Longshoremen are the same,  the payoffs and bribes are the same, the trucking companies are the same, the residents are the same and the prejudices are the same, but the Chinese factories change every few hours.

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Definition of resin from Merriam Webster's :

Quote

a yellow or brown sticky substance that comes from some trees

Oh, the irony !

That's sounding like a pretty SAPPY message.

Another sales PITCH, a load of PINE TAR.

It's as thick as MAPLE SYRUP in January.

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But seriously, that characteristic fragrance that comes from all the traditional Roman Rite incense is from the burning of frankincense, or olibanum, which is derived from the sap of a particular tree native to the Arabian peninsula (Oman, Yemen and Somalia in northeast Africa), the Boswellia tree (in which venomous snakes are known to live, ironically).   Those are the grains of incense that are used in altar stones, without which a priest is normally forbidden to say Mass, and that the priest presses into the beeswax of the Paschal Candle on Holy Saturday.




Boswellia sacra tree growing inside Biosphere 2:




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