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March 12, 2013

Byzantium Wasn’t Particularly Byzantine

Writing in The Guardian, historian Peter Frankopan looks at how the Byzantine Empire, which had “the distinction of being one of the very few realms to survive for more than a millennium,” might offer clues to a way out of the current Eurozone crisis. Continue Reading...
March 12, 2013

Who Will Be Pope #266?

Michael Severance, operations manager of Acton’s Rome office, is asking the question on everyone’s mind, “Who will be pope #266?” In The Catholic World Report, Severance makes note of the “amateur assessments” first: By now we have heard every hypothesis from scores of budget-pinching and rookie mass media stumbling on Piazza San Pietro’s uneven cobblestones. Continue Reading...
March 11, 2013

Vatican Smoke Signals

Here’s a curious tidbit regarding the fumata, the white or black smoke that will rise from the Sistine Chapel’’s chimney signaling whether a pope has been elected or not. “It is sometimes hard to distinguish the actual color of the smoke, such as in 2005”. Continue Reading...
March 11, 2013

At the Vatican Conclave: The Lull before the Storm

ROME — For all the ‘Vaticanisti’ (journalists specializing in the Vatican) sitting around Rome and interviewing one another for the last several weeks, the wholesale consumption of high blood pressure medication took a precipitous drop on the announcement Friday afternoon that the Conclave to elect the new pope would occur on Tuesday, March 12, one day later than I had predicted several weeks ago.  Continue Reading...
March 07, 2013

Jayabalan: Possibility of a Non European Pope

Update: Video Interview with Kishore from Rome. As the world awaits the beginning of the conclave, many are looking at non European Cardinals as potentials for the next pope.  Channel News Asia points out that “68 per cent of the world’s Catholics currently from Latin America, Africa and Asia, there are increased calls for the next pope to be a non-European.” Continue Reading...