Please Tell Me the Archbishop Is *Not* Wearing a T-Shirt…

From the BBC, tomorrow morning:
Archbishop to meet Pope Benedict

Lots of interesting links.

Maybe It’s a Good Thing My Dad Doesn’t Have a Computer…

From chigacotribune.com recently:
Pope Benedict XVI Gets E-Mail Address:

“In English, the address is benedictxvi@vatican.va. In Italian: benedettoxvi@vatican.va.”

Cardinal George (of Chicago): “The choice was clear”

From chicagotribune.com yesterday:
Cardinal George: The choice was clear:

“…When George greeted Ratzinger for the first time as Holy Father, he said he kissed his hand and promised his love and obedience in halting German. The new pope responded in English and indicated to George that he would renew a U.S. church policy that gives bishops the power to discipline sexually abusive priests without having to appeal to the Vatican for their removal from the priesthood.”

On This Day

From the BBC:

1994: ‘Guildford Four’ man cleared of IRA murder
1945: Red Army enters outskirts of Berlin

Burn Day

Makes Sense…

From Catholic.net:
The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer - by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - Catholic Dossier - September/October 2000:

“The following essay is Chapter Three of The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger summarizes the argument for the traditional celebration of the sacred liturgy facing liturgical East (“ad orientem”).”

Alert the Media!!

From TimesOnline, tomorrow morning:
Shock! New Pope a Catholic:

“…Journalists and pundits for whom the Catholic Church has long been an object of anthropological curiosity fringed with patronising ridicule have really let themselves go since the new pontiff emerged. Indeed most of the coverage I have seen or read could be neatly summarised as: “Cardinals elect Catholic Pope. World in Shock."

“As headlines, I’ll grant you, it’s hard to beat God’s Rottweiler, The Enforcer, or Cardinal No. They all play beautifully into the anti-Catholic sentiment in intellectual European and American circles that is, in this politically correct era, the only form of religious bigotry legitimised and sanctioned in public life. But I ask you, in all honesty, what were they expecting?

“Did the likes of The Guardian, the BBC or The New York Times think there was someone in the Church’s leadership who was going to pop up out on the balcony of St Peter’s and with a cheery wave, tell the faithful that everything they’d heard for the past 26 — no, make that 726 — years was rubbish and that they should all rush out and load up with condoms and abortifacients like teenagers off for a smutty weekend? Or did they think the conclave would go the whole hog and elect Sir Bob Geldof (with Peaches, perhaps, as a co-pope) in an effort to bring back the masses?

“It has been fun (and revealing) to watch as the cardinals’ deliberations have been portrayed, with so little imagination or understanding, as a classic left-right battle between conservatives (bad, of course) and progressives (good). But it bears little reality to the way the Church’s leadership really thinks about its future…”