Back on November 10, well-respected Vaticanista Sandro Magister reported:

Precisely when the G20 summit in Cannes was coming to its weak and uncertain conclusion, on that same Friday, November 4 at the Vatican, a smaller summit convened in the secretariat of state was doing damage control on the latest of many moments of confusion in the Roman curia.

In the hot seat was the document on the global financial crisis released ten days earlier by the pontifical council for justice and peace. A document that had disturbed many, inside and outside of the Vatican.

The secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, complained that he had not known about it until the last moment. And precisely for...READ MORE

The Register recently asked me to do a post on what I saw at Mass this Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday using the new translation of the Roman Missal.

Happy to oblige! So here’s what happened . . .

I arrived at Mass a few minutes early and took my seat in the pew. The particular parish I was attending had not done a lot of prep work for the new translation.

In fact, I saw that the Roman Missal they had was still in its shiny, new shrinkwrap.

And behold, there were seven seals upon its shrinkwrap.

I heard the cantor proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the Missal and break its seals?”

And no one in the parish was able to open the Missal or to look...READ MORE

The other day a press release lands in my email inbox and blares:

U.S. TELEVISION PREMIERE OF “POPE JOAN” ON REELZCHANNEL

The Incredible Legend of the Only Female Pope

Two-Part Television Miniseries Event Premieres Sunday and Monday, December 18-19, 2011 at 8pm ET and at 8pm PT

Oh, great. The “Pope Joan” thing again.

REELZCHANNEL? I’ve never heard of that before. And it’s no wonder with a name like REELZCHANNEL. What were their corporate branding people thinking? That Z for S substitution in the middle of two words slammed together is just painful to think about.

But back to the story . . .

(Albuquerque, NM) Tuesday, November 22, 2011—REELZCHANNEL—TV About Movies® today announced...READ MORE

Last Sunday, through unforeseen circumstances, I arrived at Mass just a couple of moments late and came in during the first reading. As I made my way to the pew, I recognized the reading as the familiar celebration of the ideal wife from Proverbs 31.

Cool! I’ve always liked that passage. It’s got a lot of neat and insightful stuff in it.

Then, after the responsorial Psalm there was the reading from 1 Thessalonians about the end of the world, and finally the Gospel reading from Matthew 25’s parable of the talents. (Which, believe it or not, is where we actually get the English word talent, referring to an ability or aptitude. That usage comes from this parable, where the talents are used...READ MORE

According to FOX News:

Irish songstress Sinead O’Connor came under fire a few weeks ago when she took to Twitter to announce that she would perform a “bloodbath” if Pope Benedict XVI visited Ireland.

“Young people of Ireland I love u’ said Sinead as she pulled the [f**king] trigger,” the artist tweeted, referencing the famous words of John Paul II, which he uttered in his 1979 pilgrimage to Ireland.

Okay, the offense meter just maxed out the scale.

But O’Connor is changing her tune, insisting that her words were all in innocent humor.

I’ll bet she is. I’ve got one word for you, Sinead: “NOT FUNNY.”

“That was just nonsense. Come on! See, that’s the trouble with Twitter, you know,...READ MORE