What do you see when you look at this picture of Pope Benedict XVI? I swear I didn’t get it, and had to ask for help. But Catholics with more sensitive (or suspicious) eyeballs saw Devil’s horns on the pope’s head–created by the shirt collar of the man behind Benedict. Apparently there was such outrage…

The Austrian priest whose appointment earlier this month caused an uproar due to his earlier remarks about Katrina being the fault of sinful Lousianians (among other things he said) has asked that his nomination as the new auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Linz be withdrawn. According to a statement released by the Linz diocese,…

A fascinating in-house SSPX interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the schismatic right-wing order, shows he was taken by suprise by Benedict’s sudden lifting of the excommunications. Why? As Reuters’ Tom Heneghan has it in this FaithWorld post, Fellay says (translation from the French) that relations with Rome had been “rather cold” for months.…

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,…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners