Benedict To Visit John Paul II

It's traditional for popes to visit the tombs of other pontiffs on All Souls Day. B16 announced today that he'll be visiting the tomb of JPG. See Zenit's daily dispatch today for that story, plus a letter from one of the Chinese bishops denied the right to travel to the Eucharistic synod. Also today: an interview about the influence of the lone Catholic signer of the Declaration on the other Founders. It includes this intriguing thesis from Scott McDermott:

I argue that the Founding Fathers unknowingly reinvented the Catholic political tradition. If anyone had suggested to them at the time that that is what they were doing, the Founders would have been horrified. Paradoxically, they were able to revive several elements of Catholic thinking because they were totally ignorant of the authentic tradition. They also had Charles Carroll in Congress and in the Maryland Senate, pushing them toward Catholic political practice without ever letting on what he was doing. And this is what the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore meant when it said in 1884 that the framers of the Constitution were "'building better than they knew,' the Almighty's hand guiding them."

Take that, Traditionalists who think the American Founding is a wholesale product of the Enlightenment!