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, […]

Israeli ambassador says goodbye

Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur, said goodbye to a group of friends at a reception at his residence Monday night. He’s returning soon to Jerusalem after more than four years in Rome, and among those gathered to bid farewell were the Vatican’s coordinator of Catholic-Jewish dialogue, Cardinal Walter Kasper, and Rome’s chief rabbi, […]

Spilling the beans on the pope’s U.S. trip

We were as surprised as anyone when Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio — read ambassador — to the United States, today gave out a detailed itinerary of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the United States next April. Typically, the nuncio’s address to the U.S. bishops on the opening day of the bishops’ fall general meeting […]