GREASED PRIEST IS HOLY ROLLER (uses blessed vegetable oil as car fuel)

QUES: What's silver, goes 70 mph and smells like a Fry Daddy in Lent?
ANS: In Jefferson City, Missouri, it could be Father Tom Alber's car.

Just as gas prices started going through the roof, Father Alber accepted a new assignment requiring extensive travel. Covering for sick or vacationing priests and celebrating Spanish-language Masses in far-flung parishes meant he was driving, on average, about 200 miles each weekend.

"Add the meetings ... and a trip home once in a while and I was spending $200 a month on gasoline," said the priest, who is in residence at Immaculate Conception Parish in Jefferson City, Missouri

The cost and his own curiosity led him to investigate affordable alternative fuels. Before long, he was looking into the renewable resource technology offered by the diesel engine.

The priest did a lot of research and then bought a 1978 car "with only 384,000 miles" and a diesel engine that seemed to suit his needs.

For fuel, he was given 250 gallons of vegetable oil from Father Joe Hoi after a parish fish fry in Owensville...

....and it still gets him wherever he needs to go... I'm sure his mileage and economy puts my SUV to shame. But it must be a dirty daily chore filtering out the burnt food residue from waste veggie oil (WVO). Also, fast food joints add a lot of salt to their fryers. I'd worry about oil viscosity during winter. So get a pre-heater and don't ruin your fuel injectors.

And watch out for the state revenuers, Padre. They often hunt down people who do this just for the unpaid road tax(s) already added to our gasoline prices. They are more interested in getting our money than energy conservation and the environment.

Biodiesel seems like a viable alternative to me, especially since gas prices will increase another five cents per gallon this week (because of the hurricanes). However, I'd guess this means that we'll soon be paying higher prices for vegetable oil too.