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Pontifications

Pope Benedict XVI is quite an animal lover (as we noted here). But he is also quite the esthete, and this sculpture, in a museum in Bolzano, the northern Italian town near where the pontiff vacations, apparently went too far for his tastes. According to a CNS story, the sculpture set off protests this summer…

I got the news–and that headline (well, the first half)–via RNS, which reported that the beauty contest for religious women that I wrote about the other day has been cancelled. “My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either,” Father Antonio Rungi told Reuters news agency…

I had thought the terrifying onslaught of Gustav and the efforts by the GOP to dodge the Katrina bullet–or turn it to McCain’s benefit–would be the story of the day, but the bombshell news that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant is worth addressing given the stakes, and the nexus of religion…

Doug Kmiec, the former Reagan/Bush official and abortion-opposing Catholic who is supporting Barack Obama, has been the topic of much discussion, here at Pontifications and elsewhere. In today’s NYTimes, columnist Peter Steinfels interviews Kmiec. Here’s one of many fascinating–and likely controversial–exchanges: Q. You have been fiercely attacked by some Catholic abortion opponents and in one…

John McCain has certainly revived his maverick label by picking–or plucking from obscurity–freshman Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. (WaPo coverage here, and NYT coverage here.) Like every candidate, there are pluses and minuses with her. On the plus side, Christian conservatives (as God-o-Meter knows and shows), are going to be delighted. She…

Yep, the Society of Jesus gets all the good ones…Over at “In All Things,” the blog of America magazine, the flagship Jesuit weekly, Father Jim Martin–an author of no minor celebrity himself, reports that Brad Pitt has been cast as Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit scientist, in the film version of Mary Doria Russell’s “The…

In a new study that could recast the seemingly endless debates over abortion and Roe v. Wade, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good yesterday released a new study that, according to the news release, is the first study of its kind to look at the “long- and short-term effects of public policy on the…

A moment likely to interest Catholics in particular will be this evening’s speech at the Democratic Convention by Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, Jr.. The younger Casey’s invitation is clearly something of a make-up for the 1992 episode when his father, the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, Sr., a pro-life Catholic, was denied a speaking slot.…

And Aristotle, Aquinas, Archbishop Chaput and various Bishops, and Brokaw…All weigh in on the House Speaker’s response to Brokaw on Sunday morning’s “Meet the Press” (scroll to the end) in which he raised–yet again–the age-old question, “When does life begin?” Pelosi’s response did not, to say the least, do justice to the Catholic tradition: MR. BROKAW: …

According to The Times of London, yes, indeed, an Italian priest (where else?) is holding an online beauty contest to find the best-looking nun. Father Antonio Rungi, of Mondragone, near Naples, said he expected at least 1,000 nuns to enter the Sister Italia contest. It would run online at first, but he hoped that it…
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