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Another book to add to the pile next to the couch. But this one, I think I must read…Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America, reviewed in that link in the Toronto Globe and Mail. In Ghost Empire, Philip Marchand’s new book about the voyages of the great and peculiar 17th-century French explorer…

An evaluation of the Pope’s intervention: "It was a beautiful speech, of great theological value, said in good, speedy Italian" said Don Constantino.

By that I mean Andrew Anonymous. By which means I hope to break my evidently foolish expectation that Andrew Sullivan will recover his senses when it comes to Catholicism. First off, I’ll let you know, that to my knowledge he never retracted and certainly never apologized for his mischaracterization of my NYTimes piece, vis-a-vis my…

More Synod talk, this time with the official Word from Rome: To date, Western Europeans, especially the French and German bishops, have offered the weightiest theological reflections, focusing on questions such as the real presence of Christ, transubstantiation, and the sacrificial character of the Mass. Bishops from the developing world have been more likely to…

Allen on yesterday: On Thursday night, Pope Benedict XVI made his first intervention in the synod. Speaking in Italian, the pope went on for 12 minutes (well exceeding the three minutes set aside for each participant during open discussion, but no one moved to turn off his microphone). Benedict offered a theological reflection of the…

Yesterday afternoon’s interventions. Do go read. Much of interest, and gives you a good sense of the scope of the issues these bishops are grappling with. Why, is it asked, do all of these issues come up at this Synod on the Eucharist? Shouldn’t they just be passing regs on kneeling and stuff and go…

Brazilian bishop ends hunger strike as officials agree to discuss I didn’t read all of the comments on this below – I’m sorry,but look at my word meter – I wrote 2000 words yesterday! 2000 more today, I hope, but I don’t quite get those who might want to heap scorn on this bishop’s concern.…

From the Tablet: THE ANNOUNCEMENT last week that the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, is to visit the Vatican on 17 November has been widely seen as momentous. After almost 2,000 years of enmity, this is another giant step towards lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. It is clear already, after Benedict XVI’s visit to…

John Allen reports: A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise "prudential judgment" that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases. Those three cases are: If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity…

Sandro Magister unpacks the recent conclave leaks and hints: That the reconstructions of the conclave disseminated until now are mutually contradictory – although they all claim to draw from confidential information received from cardinals – should come as no surprise. The most recent conclave whose proceedings have been reconstructed from documentary sources is that of…
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