Magister’s in the US at the moment. He spoke in DC on Monday, and is in Denver some time this week.

 Sandro Magister, a columnist for the Italian magazine L’Espresso and one of the top “Vaticanistas”, an expert on Church affairs and the intricate world of the Vatican, gave yesterday an interview in Washington to Catholic leaders. He drew on the first months of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, and the current situation of the Catholic Church. The event took place at the Cosmos Club in Washington DC, and was sponsored by the Athanasius Conferences -an iniciative of the Morley Institute- and Catholic News Agency.

Magister affirms it is possible to identify a clear and coherent direction  in the beginning of Pope Benedict’s pontificate. He particularly recalls the pope’s first Mass at  Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome, on Saturday, May 7.

“In it, Benedict XVI asserted that the pope “must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”