Most-viewed CNS stories for March
Did you miss any of these? Here’s a list of most-viewed stories for March on our public site, www.catholicnews.com:
1. St. Patrick’s Day falling during Holy Week prompts parade dilemma.
2. Maryland couple hopes son’s medical case will help Toussaint’s cause.
3. Vatican spokesman calls rumors of rehabilitation of Luther groundless.
4. Vatican statement on baptisms not meant to cause panic, priest says.
5. Cardinal: Liberalized use of Tridentine Mass already is bearing fruit.
6. Security requirement to keep Sikhs from interreligious papal event.
7. Nuncio says pope comes to strengthen faith, hope, love of U.S. church.
8. Closing the doors of limbo: Theologians say it was hypothesis (Dec. 2, 2005).
9. Social effects of sin greater than ever, says Vatican official.
10. Upcoming book links parishioners’ politics with their priests’ views.
Welcome to Nazareth’s Old City
NAZARETH, Israel — The Maronite Church in Nazareth’s Old City is chained and locked; most parishioners have joined the flight of residents out of the Old City in search of better housing in newer neighborhoods.
But a group of hardy young Nazarenes — and one Israeli Jew — believe in the potential of the city and refuse to abandon it. The group of young business-minded Nazarenes are taking over their family’s shops or renting abandoned properties and revamping them, offering new restaurants and cafes for tourists, simply because they love their city and want to make it better.
They want tourists to stay longer than the traditional one-hour dash through the city to see the Basilica of the Annunciation and across the city to the church where the Greek Orthodox say the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary.
Three years ago, Maoz Inon, a 32-year-old Israeli Jew, rented and renovated an abandoned house, retained the name of the original owner and opened the Fauzi Azar Inn in the heart of the Old City for pilgrims and travelers who like to take the unbeaten path. Together with his friend David Landis, Inon has also mapped out a pilgrimage trail along the footsteps of Jesus in the Galilee — starting, of course, from Nazareth.
Nearby, Wissam Abu Saleem, 31, offers thick Arabic coffee in a shop his family has run for three generations. Just on the outskirts of the Old City, Amin Zayyad will soon open a restaurant he says will offer “Middle Eastern fusion†cuisine.
If traditional fare is what a visitor craves, there is a choice of traditional restaurants, including the landmark Diana, where the salads are endless and the meats legendary.
But lunch can also be a simple warm pita-pizza with melted cheese and a slightly sweet tomato sauce at a little hole-in-the-wall place near White Mosque Square in the middle of the open-air vegetable market.
Nazareth is not only about food and in addition to the charming outdoor market, Nazareth Village, located near the French Hospital, will transplant a visitor to Nazareth as it was in biblical times.
“Ahaallaan Waasaalan” (Welcome),  says Abu Saleem. Old, new, traditional, fusion, Jew, Muslim, Christian, pilgrim, tourist, trekker – everything and everyone is welcome in Nazareth.
More nightmares about covering papal events
Tim Drake, who runs the National Catholic Register’s Pope2008.com blog, has a few nightmares of his own to tell about covering papal events. It’s a follow-up to our post last week.
Vatican blurbs for new book
VATICAN CITY — Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, hopped over to Rome and the Vatican this week to promote his new book, “A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World.”
The first-time author, whose book and related survey were unveiled last week at events in Washington and New York, got a warm welcome and rave reviews in Rome during his book presentation, which was hosted by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi and Vatican Radio.
Too bad the book’s backcover jacket is already covered with blurbs from top Catholic commentators — there’s no room now for the thumbs-up reviews the book got from the Vatican. So I’ll just share a few snippets of what Vatican panelists said during today’s presentation:
Father Lombardi, head of the Vatican’s press office, television station and Vatican Radio, called it ”a very important and interesting book.” He continued:
“(Carl Anderson)Â has presented the big issues, the big problems of the world of today, the challenges we see before us. And in a very clear, simple language he has helped not only the Knights of Columbus, but many other people to understand, to reflect what can we do to solve these big challenges.”
U.S. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary and former president of the Vatican’s laity council, said the book is “a meditation upon rebirth” and “a reflection on St. John’s ‘God is love.’”
“(Anderson) states his purpose is to outline the way the Catholic laity should create a civilization of love. Carl Anderson has discovered his mature identity as a Catholic by his fidelity to the sources of revelation, sacred Scriptures, and the sacred tradition.”
The president of Rome’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Msgr. Livio Melina, praised the book for having “the courage to propose a great, positive vision” and realistic ideals that Christians and all people of good will can work toward.Â
Msgr. Melina said he liked how each chapter ended with ”original suggestions for contemplation and action” which, in his opinion, made the book:
“a modern handbook of spiritual exercises that update the Ignatian spiritual exercises for the lay Christian of our day. It is concerned with the practice of seeing reality with new eyes, thinking with new criteria, and acting according to new perspectives.”
Finally, Msgr. Jean Laffitte, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, underlined Anderson’s assertion ”that Christians have the responsibility to transform culture radically.”Â
But, he said, the author is advocating a moral, ethical revolutionÂ
“not by imposing values … from above, but through a subtler, more powerful process: living a vocation of love in the day to day reality of our lives. A love whose actions are grounded in the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.”
Dismantling the “culture of suspicion” and building up a civilization of love “involves a personal willingness to see Christ in the suffering of all human beings around us such that our only response to them is one of responsibility for them in love,” said Msgr. Laffitte.
He also lauded Anderson’s book as being “a new powerful tool for which to expand the new evangelization to every world culture.”
A little name change
Sharp-eyed viewers of these pages may have noticed a slight name change: Rather than calling this the CNS News Hub, we’re now simply calling it the CNS Blog.
The reason for the name change is equally simple. When this all started in 2006, the News Hub was a way chiefly to link to interesting stories from CNS clients. Over time, though, it morphed into more of a traditional blog, with links to client stories plus news nuggets and other interesting tidbits about CNS that didn’t fit into a traditional news story format.
And with the papal trip to the United States just two weeks away, look for even more robust posting here. We’ve got big plans for the trip and for our blog, so stay tuned.
Also worth noting …
From here and there around the Catholic press:
 – Spreading the message of mercy. A story in the Arlington Catholic Herald in Virginia about a local nun who feels a close connection to St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who promoted the divine mercy devotions on the Sunday after Easter.
– St. Vincent’s ‘Flat Stanley’ visits Congress, travels afar. A feature from the Intermountain Catholic in Salt Lake City on how second-graders at a local Catholic school learn geography and language arts by following the travels of their own Flat Stanley.
– Diocese begins stem-cell-education program. A campaign in the Diocese of Rochester, N.Y., to counter a state plan to fund stem-cell research is described by the Catholic Courier.
Pope to see ballgame in D.C.
I don’t usually blog on the weekend, but this is too good to pass up. Did you know that Pope Benedict is going to catch a ballgame at the new Nationals Park in D.C. when he’s here in just over two weeks?
Benedict is scheduled to visit the White House on April 16, a Washington Nationals game on April 17, then New York, where he will speak at the United Nations on April 18, visit Ground Zero and finally Yankee Stadium on April 20.
Which journalist wrote that blooper of a sentence? I’m not naming names, but the story appears to have originated on the Web site of Folio magazine. It then got picked up almost word for word on The Huffington Post. (I found it innocently enough when I clicked on a link on the Benedict in America site, though the latter didn’t repeat the ballgame error.)
I’m upset that Pope Benedict is going to get to see a game at the new stadium before I do — unless he’s got an extra ticket and can take me along.
The nightmares of preparing for a papal visit
The next time a journalist tells you that preparing for a papal trip is a nightmare, you might want to take it as a literal statement.
From applying for media credentials to planning preview stories, assigning coverage to purchasing additional equipment, it’s been nonstop since Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s representative to the United States, announced the papal visit in November. And that does not even touch upon security screening that journalists must go through for the first papal trip to the U.S. in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
CNS Visual Media Manager Nancy Wiechec dreamed that a USCCB employee insisted that he needed a mug shot — literally — of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He insisted he needed a photo to reproduce on coffee mugs, immediately. When Wiechec pointed out that the pope was arriving in the U.S. the following day, the employee grew belligerent.
One USCCB staffer who has been working on papal trip preparations dreamed that when Pope Benedict arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, she was the only person there to greet him. She said that as she searched frantically for the welcoming dignitaries, she assured the pontiff that people would come, but they were stuck in D.C. traffic.
I realized that I might have shared too much of my office tension when my husband announced his nightmare: He arrived at the office late one night during the papal trip to take me home from work. I was the only person standing in front of the building when, suddenly, Secret Service agents surrounded us and demanded identification. I had the proper ID, but he did not. So, he recounted, I took the car and waved goodbye, while he was hauled away in a horse-drawn paddy wagon.
As the trip approaches and the stress increases, you might think we wished we were not involved.
In your dreams! This is the kind of thing journalists live for.