That is certainly my sense of Benedict’s address at the Vatican this morning to U.S. Jewish leaders. The meeting was the latest and probably last high-profile effort to soothe Jewish-Catholic relations in the wake of the pontiff’s outreach to the schismatic Traditionalists of the SSPX, including the Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson. The text is here,…

The official text, delivered in English, today: Dear Friends, I am pleased to welcome all of you today, and I thank Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Mr Alan Solow for the greetings they have addressed to me on your behalf. I well recall the various occasions, during my visit to the United States last year, when…

In this story Reuters’ Vaticanista Phil Pullella has the lowdown ahead of Thursday’s critical meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and American Jewish leaders. Read transcripts of Pullella’s interviews with leading members of the Jewish delegation, and see a timeline on Catholic-Jewish relations. The long and short of it: Jewish leaders say the problem is bigger…

Today is also the date, in 1858, that the Virgin Mary first appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto in Lourdes, in southwest France. During subsequent apparitions, Our Lady of Lourdes–as she came to be known–revealed various messages to Bernadette, and thus began one of the greatest stories of Marian devotion and pilgrimage in church…

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