Just in time for Passover, lots of religious pet news! This week we learned that Pope Benedict XVI's loves cats -- he even has an authorized biography written by a furry friend named Chico who was his neighbor in Germany. The book is called “Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat" (as told to journalist Jeanne Perego).

As for Jewish furballs, a recent article at Petside.com suggests that Passover is the perfect time to have your pets keep kosher too. While the dogs at my seder (there were four!) seemed to enjoy a stray matzoh ball, the article doesn't offer much insight into KforP pet food. It does, however, provide some helpful hints for keeping Fido kosher the rest of the year:

The companies that now provide kosher kibble adhere to the strict separation of meat and dairy to qualify the food as kosher for animals. This does not make the pet food kosher for human consumption, and in a kosher household, the animal’s dish would have to be washed in a bathroom or laundry room sink, separate from the kosher supplies in the kitchen.

Of course, there are no Jewish laws stating that pets must keep kosher, but for pet owners, it can be a way to ensure that beloved dogs and cats are getting high quality food. In no time at all, they'll be ready for their Bark Mitzvahs.

Like far too many of us, I know a woman who was sexually abused as a child. A Catholic then, when she confessed to her Midwestern family priest, in his way he abused her even more. She was in part responsible, he told her. She was guilty. This, apparently, is what the Church had taught him, and taught him to teach her. She, like all of us, was a sinner.

She was a child.

I’ve been a Catholic my entire life. I’ve sung in the choirs. I’ve taught Catechism to children. I’ve volunteered. I’ve had the honor of delivering a wedding sermon. (And the dishonor of having a priest make a pass at me.)

Thomas Merton I’d also say I’m a particularly, and peculiar, American Catholic. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a churchgoer who doesn’t actually believe in God. Yet in my way I’ve always been a Catholic apologist. And like those of many liberal Catholics, my apologies hardly ever refer to Rome. Though skeptical of the Utopian impulse behind pacifism, I'm drawn to the active nonviolence of converts Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day, who both, for what it’s worth, had complicated sex lives as far as the Church is concerned. As a monk, Merton carried on a love affair with student nurse Margie Smith. Dorothy Day, a single mother, had an abortion before her conversion. Writer Flannery O’Connor shapes my idea of prophecy more than Pope John Paul II ever did (yet it’s true that I was enamored of the robust, yet humble, pope of my childhood). Academic and cultural critic Gary Wills translates the Gospels in a way that clarifies why I am a Catholic by making the radical stories that have shaped my religious life immediately recognizable, yet somehow refreshing and newly inspiring.

Flannery O'Connor Paul Elie, through both his biography of Merton, Day, and O’Connor, and essays in Commonweal and the Atlantic, has shown just how distinct American Catholicism is and argued that “much of what is best in the Catholic tradition has arisen in the shadow” of the papacy, “and much of what is worst has occurred when popes overplayed their role.” In his report on the accession of Benedict, Elie, who suggests the current pope may be too old to “catch up on the work” required to school himself in the American experience, concludes that American Catholics “ought to turn away from the question of what the pope believes and consider just what it is that we believe – turning our attention from Rome at long last and back to the world in which the real religious dramas of our time are taking place.” This is hardly what we’ve seen since Benedict arrived. The religious drama has been entirely about the apologies coming from Rome.

Which brings me back to my friend and her religious drama, undeniably a tragedy. There was a time when I tried to apologize for that priest – and really all of Catholicism – by pointing to my Catholic heroes and the liberal religious life I’d carved out for myself. For every scandal there was a Catholic Workers House of Hospitality feeding and giving shelter to the poor. For every priestly sin, a story by Flannery O’Connor. For every hateful word raised against her gay sister, and every condemnation for the abortions sought by her close friends, I had a translation from the New Testament rebutting it all with Jesus’ radical love. My Jesuit church, which had opposed the war from the beginning, represented all that was good about Catholicism. My priests, like me, hardly ever talked about personal sin. And in opening our doors to gays and lesbians we’d had our back turned on Rome for years.

But none of this means anything to her. She’s not only turned her back on Rome, she’s shut the door angrily on Catholicism. And I cannot blame her. I often wonder why, in her defense, I haven’t done the same thing.

Pope Benedict For, as much as I’d like to believe that Pope Benedict’s current U.S. trip and his apparent shame over the sexual abuse by priests could set things right and heal the kinds of wounds he keeps talking about, so long as the Church affirms the rightness and faithfulness of its position against sex, against women, against gays and lesbians, and so long as the Church defends a shrinking male priesthood, his apologies, like mine, will always be of the wrong kind delivered with the wrong purpose. He wants to bring her back to a Church that refuses to properly value her. (And of course she’s not alone in being undervalued.)

Catholicism teaches that you can’t truly be reconciled with God or your fellow man (or, of course, woman, in this and so many cases), without confessing your sins completely and in good faith. You must commit never to sin again.

Still, it seems sinful simply to apologize and then expect those who have turned away from the Church to return or, for that matter, even to take your apology seriously when the sinning persists. Many of the abused have gathered their strength and moved on and away. And again, I can’t blame them. As for those of us who remain, we have to stop simply apologizing – perhaps even stop accepting apologies as enough – and like Elie suggests, consider just what it is that we believe and then act on it to make American Catholicism better and truly faithful.

Related: Benedict XVI is "Deeply Ashamed" of the Serial-Rapist Priests He Shielded from Justice, Pope Benedict Loves Jewish Pie

Pope Benedict Says: "Can I get some Jewish pizza with this wine?" The relationship between Pope Benedict and the Jews has been tumultuous, to say the least. Luckily, recent evidence shows that Pope Benedict has discovered his own personal affinity for the Jewish people, thanks to their pastries.

Wilma Limentani, owner of a kosher bakery near the Vatican, has received a thank you note from Catholicism’s highest authorities, informing her that Joey Ratz himself is a huge fan of her biscotti and her nut-and-raisin concoction called “Jewish pizza.”

Just don’t tell him it’s made with the blood of Christian babies – kidding! His Holiness was introduced to Limentani's delectable confections by his nice Jewish doctor.

Related: Arabs Hot for Israeli Porn

…As acknowledged by the Pope himself –oops, sorry, by his second-in-command. The whole bungle with the new-old-Latin mass may thus sort itself out by the removal of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews from the Latin missal. So while the criticism of ADL’s Foxman’s reaction to the motu proprio would certainly please most people here at Jewcy, the Catholic writer who characterized his statement as “a mix of ignorance and bellicosity” is going to have an interesting time arguing with himself: as the Pope is infallible, if he says that what he said wasn’t what he should’ve said, what should you believe?

With a decree he released “motu proprio”—that is, without the counsel of others—on Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI authorized a wider use of the old Catholic rite known as the Tridentine Mass. Officially abandoned in 1970, this traditional service is conducted by a priest who faces away from the congregation and mumbles the prayers in Latin. With this decree, Benedict, like the Tridentine priest, has turned his back once again on the modern Church, to sayMumbling The Prayers in Latin: The Tridentine Mass is back nothing of the modern world. The apologetic Catholic in me is constantly trying to defend the ...

What, no fava beans?: How foie gras gets madeMy friend Max Gross sent an email Tuesday asking for the best Onion headline to describe the pope's stance against foie gras and other assorted not-so-lean cuisines derived from animal cruelty. Jewcy participants included your humble servant (winner by a kinkified hair), Joe Braude and Jesse Cook-Dubin. Here were the results:

Noah Phillips gets the award for most hyper-intellectually cute headline with "Habemus Pate." Of course, to understand this headline one would have to be acquainted with Habemus Papum, which -- despite the fact that there are around 58 million American Catholics -- strikes me as a little obscure. (It's the equivalent of the pope's inauguration for anyone scratching their head.) Also, this one loses out on first place because it's not really an Onion headline; it's more of a New Republic head. The Onion is more newsy (and thus absurdly funny) in its headlines.

Joe Braude comes closer to The Onion style with his, "Father Joe to Mother Goose: Audeamus"... which is runner up for a hyper-intellectual cute headline. However, I have to admit, I had no idea what Audeamus meant. Joe tells me it means, "Let us dare"... it works, but if you have to get on wikipedia to figure out a headline, it's too highbrow. But the "Father Joe to Mother Goose" is great -- that gets him honorable mention.

Jesse Cook-Dubin gets the prize for most hysterical headline: "Pope says geese are responsible for all the wars in the world!" As a writer for the NY Post, I really appreciate this one. And this one might have won if we were talking about Mel Gibson. But, alas, it misses the mark for this particular story. (Another part of why it misses the mark is because the pope is, in this story, on the side of the geese.) And even though I don't doubt that Pope Benedict is a vicious antisemite, it's a stretch to link his Hitler Youth past and the recent Mel Gibson comments. Granted, it's okay to stretch with a hystrical headline. Excellent job, Mr. Cook-Dubin.

Lisa Keys gets a shout out for reusing the always funny "better than 'Cats'" line with, "Pope Loves Animals -- even better than 'Cats'."

The award for headline which most personalized the story most goes to our friend Daniel Treiman. Daniel came up with "Gross to Pope: Keep your Rosaries out of my Eateries". Kudos to you, Daniel. It made me laugh out loud. Of course, if this were to become an Onion headline we would replace "Gross" with "Boulud". But this headline is fabulous.

However, the one that stopped me in my tracks is Mike Weiss with his, "Goose-Stepping Pontiff Opposes Goose Liver Pate". It wins first place for numerous reasons. First off, it is in The Onion style -- which is straight news. Secondly, it captures the whole story, which any good headline does. Thirdly, it cuts to the essential truth about our one and only Hitler Youth pope. And finally it sums up the absurdity of a pope worrying about such a stupid issue. Basically, this covers all the bases. Congratulations to you, Mr. Weiss. You have won a serving of foie gras at our next outing.

Thanks for all who participated.

MPG

No thanks. I sympathize more with Hannibal Lecter munching on the "free-range rude." 

So amidst all the Hadley memo leaking and civil war-defining in the day's news cycle comes word that the Ratz has given a Buddy Jesus thumbs up to the idea of Turkey joining the EU. Either this is his umpteenth mea culpa for that September speech about how Mohammed was a non-starter or the Holy Father is hoping that by bringing Ankara into Greater Christendom, the Gospels might become as fungible as passports. 

As Benedict continued his four-day visit, Turkey focused on his gestures on arrival on Tuesday: his apparent support for Ankara's bid to join the European Union and praise for Islam after a recent speech Muslims found insulting.

``This is a big warning for conservative politicians who think the EU is a Christian club,'' wrote daily Milliyet columnist Guneri Civaoglu.

``This is a big warning for conservative politicians who think the EU is a Christian club,'' wrote daily Milliyet columnist Guneri Civaoglu."

 

 

Members of a Turkish workers' union protesting the arrival of Pope Benedict. More here.