More on Ronald McDonald children meeting the pope

Do you remember our story on the disabled kids from the Ronald McDonald House in New York who got an unscheduled opportunity to meet Pope Benedict? If you were touched by that story, you’ll be even more touched by this Dominican Friars blog post which includes a YouTube video of TV coverage of the event. [...]

Interview with Nancy Wiechec

Many of the photos of Pope Benedict’s historic U.S. visit that you’ve seen on our home page and on this blog were taken by our visual media manager, Nancy Wiechec (right). Many of them are what I consider to be iconic images that you’ll be seeing for years to come, whether in our client publications [...]

Students use creativity to cover the pope

If you’ve noticed, a theme here this week is stories being told back home about seeing Pope Benedict.
Sister Carol Hoverman, editor of the archdiocesan newspaper The Witness in Dubuque, Iowa, has her own compilation of personal accounts. As she says, “Each person has a unique story to tell and memories that will last a lifetime.”
My favorite of [...]

A great quote about Yankee Stadium and the pope

We’ve written before about how Yankee Stadium, the “cathedral of baseball” to many sports fans, looked like a real cathedral for the pope’s Mass.
And we talked here yesterday about memorable moments and memorable quotes from the trip.
Well, following up on yesterday’s post about people bringing memories of the papal trip home to their local communities, I’d [...]

Talking about the pope back home

Numerous Catholic papers came out this past weekend with coverage of the papal trip but also personal reflections on how the trip touched the lives of local Catholics. Some examples:

The Catholic Explorer in the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., published first-person accounts on the papal trip from a local college president, the diocesan superintendent of schools, [...]

Cardinal O’Malley on meeting with victims

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston gave an interview to his archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, headlined “Cardinal reflects on apostolic visit, meeting with victims.” We’re working on a story on it for today.
In the interview, Cardinal O’Malley calls the presentation of a book of names of abuse victims (left) to the pope a “very poignant moment [...]

The Internet is nice, but …

Yes, you can get all the texts from Pope Benedict’s historic visit to the United States from various locations on the Internet, but wouldn’t you (or your parish study group) rather have them in one easy-to-read, magazine-style format? If so, you’re in luck. Origins, the CNS documentary service which has been chronicling the history of the [...]

Candid camera

Catholic Press Photo photographer Alessia Giuliani caught the following candid photo of CNS Rome bureau chief John Thavis at Park East Synagogue in New York April 18. Thavis, who has covered the Vatican for more than 25 years for Catholic News Service,  also covered Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to a Rome synagogue in 1986.

Cranking it out during the papapalooza

Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the U.S. was a short one compared to the lengthier jaunts of his globe-trotting predecessor, but this 81-year-old pope packed in a lot during the six days of his Great American Papapalooza.
As journalists, we at CNS throw ourselves into such events and come up for air after the last note [...]

Kids say the darndest things

My daughter’s pre-K teacher offered an opportunity for parents to talk about what they do during the day while their children attend school. Given the distaste in which some people hold journalists, I didn’t know whether my job would qualify. But qualify it did. When offered a choice of dates, I had to pass on [...]