Welcome to Cyber Monday! Hey, it’s got to be safer than Black Friday: less chance of pepper spray, Tasers, fisticuffs.

At least in my house. Mostly.

Diana Butler Bass cautions we preachers and elitists from savoring the low-hanging fruit of consumer bashing:

“[T]he oddest thing about the folks in lines at those discount stores: They are mostly poor, working class, or marginally middle class. These are the very people who attend church regularly, express higher levels of belief in God, and are more likely to give a higher percentage of their income to those in need.”

The wealthy, on the other hand, don’t need discounts and tend to have personal shoppers. Rod nods.

Either way, we spent $11.4 billion on Black Friday this year, the Biggest Shopping Day Ever. And that’s what the season is all about, right?

Oh, it was the first Sunday of Advent as well, and Catholics started getting used to some new phrasings at Mass, which, depending on your point of view, are lovely and mysterious, or put the turgid in liturgical.

Or it just wasn’t’ that big a deal.

Commonweal’s blog has some interesting and informed (and quite popular) posts, which shows liturgical changes are a big deal in many quarters:

• Peter Steinfels‘ pre-mortem was followed by a much-cited “Aftermass” post
• “I think I’m going to go grab a chalice of scotch,” said Eduardo Peñalver
• Peter Nixon tried to modulate his voice to make up for the grammatical infelicities.

At Whispers, Rocco Palmo knows link bait when he smells it, and opened his blog for post-mass reax — 181 comments and counting!

Meanwhile back in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of American bishops they were doing a good job battling the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors in the church, and said everyone else could take a note:

“[J]ust as the church is rightly held to exacting standards in this regard, all other institutions, without exception, should be held to the same standards,” he said.

College athletic departments (Syracuse University?), he may be talking to you.

The 1,500-year-old Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is finally getting a makeover. Tough to find a few million to do that when we’re spending on so many Christmas essentials.

Speaking of which, the price tag for all those items in the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song would cost you more than $100,000.

Islamist parties continue to do well in the voting portion of the Arab Spring; The AP analyzes.

The New York Times’ Dept. of Unexpected Things finds African-American atheists and a Jewish version of the New Testament. Who knew?

– David Gibson