In the Register ...

We hear the remark all the time when we travel and talk to Register readers: There is so much information in the Register it is almost too much. We agree, and that’s why we have been tackling big issues one piece at a time, in series.

It is hard to miss that strategy in this issue. On the front page, you have Judy Roberts' 16th — and penultimate — installment in our series on whether or not dioceses are implementing U.S. bishops’ guidelines for religious education textbooks. Each installment is a lesson in itself about the doctrinal problems our textbooks have suffered from — and how the bishops addressed them.

Tim Drake writes the second and concluding piece in his series about celibacy in the priesthood. While Islam was making most of the headlines, celibacy was under direct attack in the Church last year as it rarely has been before. This piece completes what Tim began in late December with his article about the few married Roman Catholic priests in America and how their experience has taught them the need for celibacy.

Last, in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity we conclude our series on the Holy Father’s Herculean efforts to unite the Churches. In this installment, we focus on Evangelical Christians.

Are we giving you too much? We like the comment one reader made: The Register puts so much in each issue that, even after he has cut out the articles he wants to pass on, there’s still so much left in the paper that he doesn’t want to throw it away!

Father Owen will be meeting Register sponsors in Florida Feb. 1-10. For information, call Michael Lambert  at (800) 356-9916.

Edward Reginald Frampton, “The Voyage of St. Brendan,” 1908, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin.

Which Way Is Heaven?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystic west was inspired by the legendary voyage of St. Brendan, who sailed on a quest for a Paradise in the midst and mists of the ocean.