The Pope Excommunicates the Mafia

Last weekend, addressing a crowd of over 200,000, Pope Francis told mafia members that they embrace evil and that they will be excommunicated. In the battle to rid Italy of the mafia scourge, the significance of the Pope’s words are not to be underestimated. “The ‘ndrangheta is worship of evil and contempt for the common good,”…” that is bad…”…”and […]
The Vatican Bank – A Cause for Concern

The papacy of the Jesuit Jorge Bergoglio may be off to an auspicious start as far as his personal stamp on the role is concerned. The reception he has received has been extraordinary, due no doubt in part to the perceived austerity of his predecessor, the ailing Joseph Ratzinger. Whether things will be as positive […]
Italy’s Next Pope? Not.
I’ve no idea who created this photo-montage, or where it came from, but knowing Italy as I do, I found the unholy combination, highly amusing.
The Vatican is Anti-Berlusconi!
Yep, it’s official, well almost. There have been quite a number of news stories about the new 21st century sins that the dear old Vatican has come up with. And here they are, the sins, that is, in no particular order, at least I don’t believe so: Environmental pollution – Change you car – or […]
The Pope’s passing away
Unless you happened to have been very well off beaten tracks at the time, you will, by now, be well aware that the Pope has died. TV programming has just about returned to normal, after having dwelled upon the death to an amount which almost bordered on bad taste. But then this is Italy and […]
The Pope
As I write this entry, we are coming to the end of an epoch, or that is how the media here are putting it. The Russian news agency TASS apparently carried the news this evening of the Pope’s death, a little prematurely. Most of the TV channels here have been carrying either vigils from St […]