{"id":885,"date":"2009-03-23T07:09:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T07:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html"},"modified":"2009-03-23T07:09:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T07:09:00","slug":"shell-raiser-updated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html","title":{"rendered":"Shell-raiser &#8212; UPDATED"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>File this under the category of &#8220;Papal Gifts, Animal Division.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>From CNS&#8217;s intrepid <a href=\"http:\/\/cnsblog.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/23\/the-tortoise-and-the-herr-papst\/\">John Thavis<\/a>, aboard the pope&#8217;s flight from Angola: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> <a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s1600-h\/turtle1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 250px;height: 166px\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Non-cardinal passengers on the papal plane have to be onboard well before the pope or they get left behind \u2014 at least that\u2019s the threat used to keep journalists moving.<\/p>\n<p>But speed seems to have nothing to do with the fact that Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s tortoise was not onboard when the pope\u2019s Alitalia chartered jet took off from Luanda, Angola, this morning.<\/p>\n<p>The turtle, a symbol of wisdom, was a gift from a group of Pygmies from the Baka ethnic group. They gave the pope the turtle Friday as the pope was leaving Cameroon for Angola.<\/p>\n<p>The eight-inch long brown turtle made Friday\u2019s papal flight from Cameroon to Angola. But when all the reporters, cardinals and papal aides were onboard this morning for the flight back to Rome, there was no turtle in sight.<\/p>\n<p>Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told the reporters that the tortoise was left \u201cin good hands\u201d at the apostolic nunciature in Luanda, Angola\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>While there had been some discussion about bringing the turtle back to the Vatican gardens with its dozens of fountains, in the end, Father Lombardi said, it was decided that the turtle belonged in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The papal spokesman promised that a good home in the proper habitat would be found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <b>UPDATE:<\/b> Evidently, that &#8220;proper habitat,&#8221; will be back in Africa, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnews.com\/data\/stories\/cns\/0901339.htm\">this update<\/a> by John Thavis. <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:78%\"><b>PHOTO:<\/b><i>  Father Lombardi carries the pope&#8217;s turtle down the aisle of the papal plane during the flight from Cameroon to Angola Friday. (CNS photo\/Alessia Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>File this under the category of &#8220;Papal Gifts, Animal Division.&#8221; From CNS&#8217;s intrepid John Thavis, aboard the pope&#8217;s flight from Angola: Non-cardinal passengers on the papal plane have to be onboard well before the pope or they get left behind \u2014 at least that\u2019s the threat used to keep journalists moving. But speed seems to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-politics-and-politicians"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shell-raiser - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shell-raiser - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"File this under the category of &#8220;Papal Gifts, Animal Division.&#8221; From CNS&#8217;s intrepid John Thavis, aboard the pope&#8217;s flight from Angola: Non-cardinal passengers on the papal plane have to be onboard well before the pope or they get left behind \u2014 at least that\u2019s the threat used to keep journalists moving. But speed seems to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-23T07:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Shell-raiser - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Shell-raiser - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"File this under the category of &#8220;Papal Gifts, Animal Division.&#8221; From CNS&#8217;s intrepid John Thavis, aboard the pope&#8217;s flight from Angola: Non-cardinal passengers on the papal plane have to be onboard well before the pope or they get left behind \u2014 at least that\u2019s the threat used to keep journalists moving. But speed seems to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2009-03-23T07:09:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html","name":"Shell-raiser - UPDATED - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg","datePublished":"2009-03-23T07:09:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-23T07:09:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/ScdubKM9dpI\/AAAAAAAAFTg\/_CsQqRNAjJg\/s320\/turtle1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/shell-raiser-updated.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Shell-raiser &#8212; UPDATED"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}