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Pontifications

“Funky” and “Pope Benedict XVI” generally aren’t found in the same news item, but they are in this CNS blog post about the pontiff receiving a gift of a pair of Piaggio Ape-Calessino three-wheel, two-stroke putt-putt of the sort that buzz (“ape” means bee in Italian) through Roman crowds–or over your piede. Apparently the vehicles…

Barack Obama is in a virtual tie with John McCain for the Catholic vote, the “Holy Grail” of the campaign, as Amy Sullivan puts it in her analysis of TIME’s latest poll which shows 45 percent of the 47 million Catholic voters–concentrated in key swing states, as TIME’s map shows–versus 44 percent for Obama. This…

That question came to mind as I was reading what seems like yet another round of talk about an Anglican “schism”-I put the word in quotes because many don’t describe it that way, or want to cast what is happening in terms of a Reformation or something more prophetic-sounding. The talk regards a meeting of…

Sunday was the annual Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, but the focus this past weekend was on the Apostle to the Gentiles, in light of the inauguration by Pope Benedict XVI–along with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople –of the Pauline Year to mark the 2,000 year since the birth of Saul, who Greek-speaking Christians…

The misbegotten blog-confession (there must be a juicy neologism in there) of the Washington Post’s “On Faith” co-founder, Sally Quinn, that she took communion at the funeral of her friend Tim Russert has provoked a pretty healthy web-storm. As it should. Quinn is by all accounts a fine person with many longtime friendships in Washington,…

L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, confirms rumors that those nifty red loafers Benedict XVI has worn since the day after his election are not name brand, but personally cobbled by some Vatican Geppetto. According to the AP: “Obviously the attribution was false,” the Vatican newspaper said in its Thursday’s editions. “Such rumors are inconsistent…

Pope Benedict’s penchant for high ecclesiastical fashion has been noted here and here, but in neither story did I note his preference for a wide-brimmed red summer hat. Snappy lid, Your Holiness. But I wasn’t sure what to call it–a galero or saturno or what–until now. CNS’ intrepid Carol Glatz has finally resolved the mystery…Read…

A story in this morning’s NYTimes, “For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival,” reveals a little-known (to most of us in the U.S., I suspect) story of how Iraqi Christians have been paying off militias in exchange for their lives. The story starts with Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who died earlier this year after…

Yes, the name has changed–from the equally sanctimonious (and tongue-in-cheek) “Benedictions”–but the blogger has remained the same: David Gibson, author of the “Benedictions” blog that covered Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the U.S. in April. You all helped make the site (and the visit) a success, and Beliefnet has asked me to stay on with…

Even the Swiss Guards, it seems, are into the marketing racket. As readers of this blog know, and as I explain in my “Pontifications” introduction, I like to roam the broad realm of Catholic faith and culture, from the sublime to the ridiculous–from church reform to secular politics, from Tim Russert to George Carlin, and…
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