{"id":6155,"date":"2006-08-31T16:06:03","date_gmt":"2006-08-31T16:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/only-the-big-newsflashes-here-folks.html"},"modified":"2006-08-31T16:06:03","modified_gmt":"2006-08-31T16:06:03","slug":"only-the-big-newsflashes-here-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/only-the-big-newsflashes-here-folks.html","title":{"rendered":"Only the big newsflashes here, folks:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benedict abolishes the Vatican Christmas Pops Concert:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The annual charity concert, organised since its inception by the Prime Time Promotion events agency, will be transferred to Monaco beginning this year, the paper reported.<\/p>\n

Starting in 1993, Italian and international pop stars gathered annually in the Paul VI auditorium for the Yuletide bash. And every year Pope John Paul II either granted an audience with the performers or prepared a videotaped message.<\/p>\n

To the chagrin of many performers, the 2005 edition was marked by the absence of Benedict XVI, elected pope eight months earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is impossible not to notice a change under the new pontiff,\u201d the ANSA news agency said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenedict XVI is a very sober pope and is not inclined toward variety shows. He is more concerned about leading the faith of Catholics to its spiritual essence.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Stampa<\/em> suggested that Benedict XVI’s reluctance to continue the Christmas concert tradition stems not only from the German-born pope’s preference for classical music, but also his desire to avoid the small scandals that have plagued the event in recent years.<\/p>\n

Last year, Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury’s show was cancelled by the Vatican because she had taken part in a public service campaign in Brazil promoting the use of condoms.<\/p>\n

And in 2003, the American singer Lauryn Hill, ex-leader of the Fugees, suggested during her concert before 7500 spectators \u2013 including many Catholic prelates \u2013 that the Church ask forgiveness for crimes committed in the United States by pedophile priests.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benedict abolishes the Vatican Christmas Pops Concert: The annual charity concert, organised since its inception by the Prime Time Promotion events agency, will be transferred to Monaco beginning this year, the paper reported. Starting in 1993, Italian and international pop stars gathered annually in the Paul VI auditorium for the Yuletide bash. And every year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOnly the big newsflashes here, folks: - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/only-the-big-newsflashes-here-folks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Only the big newsflashes here, folks: - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Benedict abolishes the Vatican Christmas Pops Concert: The annual charity concert, organised since its inception by the Prime Time Promotion events agency, will be transferred to Monaco beginning this year, the paper reported. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}