Potpourri of Popery, Gearing Up For WydSyd Edition

At left is Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, patron of WYDSYD and all around fun guy. Really. His feast was July 4th.

Popery
The Holy Father departs for Oz on Saturday, a few days early so he can rest before WYDSYD. He'll be staying at an Opus Dei center while on vacation (do I sense a Dan Brown novel coming on?) According to the official program, he won't be formally welcomed until July 17th, but in Sunday's Angelus he was already thinking of the trip.

Blowing on the Church's sail, the divine Spirit pushes her to "go into the deep," always anew, from generation to generation, to take to everyone the Good News of the love of God, revealed fully in Jesus Christ, dead and resurrected for us. I am certain that from all the corners of the earth Catholics will be united with me and with all the young people gathered -- as in the Cenacle -- in Sydney, intensely invoking the Holy Spirit so that he will flood hearts with the inner light of love of God and of brothers, and of courageous initiative to introduce Jesus' eternal message in the diversity of languages and cultures.

He also asked the participants of the G-8 Summit to remember the poorest and weakest peoples:

whose vulnerability has increased because of speculation and financial turbulence and its adverse effects on the price of food and energy.

Financial turbulence, by the way, has affected the Vatican. The falling dollar has caused the Holy See to run a deficit for the first time in five years. Ponder this little detail:

The majority of the Holy See's expenses are in euro, while the majority of the input is in dollars.

This is interesting, too: the dioceses that contribute the most to the Holy See's upkeep. Of approximately $30 million in collections,

Germany contributed the most at 31.57%, followed by the United States at 28.31%. Italy contributed 18.9%. Austria, Canada and Spain contributed more than 3% each, and Korea contributed 2.31%

Korea does as well as Spain!

• Here's the official message for WYDSYD.
• And how to earn the WYD indulgence.
• Watch it at EWTN or here.

In the meanwhile, the Pope's using his vacation to finish Volume II of Jesus of Nazareth & to write his first social encyclical, which may --no promises says the Card. Sec. of State-- be out in the fall. How does he manage it? A photographic memory helps. This from Benedict of Bavaria:

Ratzinger generates volumes in his head as he writes them out by hand or simply speaks. While he was archbishop of Munich and Freising, a bishop recalled that Ratzinger "would dictate while pacing up and down in the room, and you could then print 20 pages with a single mistake. The way he talked was fit to print." and: The Pope's secretaries and assistants say he writes lengthy quotations from other sources verbatim, without looking them up, some of them from works he has not read in many years.

Potpourri

• More Oz: Official WYD site. Check out Pope 2008: Pilgrim profiles. And is the Pope a "rock star"?
• Bahrain: The King visited the Pope and invited the Pope to visit his country.
• Canada: CHRCs blink again: charges dropped against Fr. de Valk. Madonna House and others returning their Orders of Canada in protest over abortionist Henry Morgentaler receiving one (Dear me, the man's a holocaust survivor. Is it Stockholm Syndrome?)
• China: Card. Zen wants to end the synod on scripture with the beatification of Bible's Chinese translator.
• Italy: They're going to read the entire Bible on tv. B16's doing Genesis.
  
• Great Britain: C of E votes to ordain women bishops; flight to Rome ensues.
• Nepal: Catholic priest assassinated. Martyrdom or robbery?
  
• Vietnam: young bishop takes 200 to WYDSYD.

And finally: Jesus is a liberal.