Top 10 Newspapers (by Circulation)

Look for Amy's op-ed in the top paper sometime within the next ten days...

From Drudge:

1. USA Today, 2,272,815, up 0.09 percent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,049,786, down 1 percent
3. The New York Times, 1,142,464, up 0.5 percent
4. Los Angeles Times, 851,832, down 5.4 percent
5. The Washington Post, 724,242, down 3.7 percent
6. New York Daily News, 708,477, down 3.7 percent
7. New York Post, 673,379, down 0.7 percent
8. Chicago Tribune, 579,079, up 0.9 percent
9. Houston Chronicle, 513,387, down 3.6 percent
10. The Arizona Republic, 438,722, down 2.1 percent

Opus Dei Site Affirms DaVinci Code Assertions

In fact, as you'll read on Fr. John Wauck's excellent DaVinci Code Catechism...Jesus was married (as also has been posted on this blog and look for a fuller treatment this week), the Church did create the New Testament, Sex is holy, and others.

Free Kittens...Not

From Yahoo News:

A Sphynx kitten is held before a referee while being evaluated at an international cat beauty contest in Bucharest Romania Sunday May 7, 2006. Rare breed cats sell for prices ranging from 300 to over 1,000 euros ($US380/ $US1,270). The average monthly income in Romania is around 150 euros.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...personally when I think of Romania, I think of vampires and this sure looks like a vampire to me!

Even Stranger Top 10 Barnes and Nobles Catholic List

May 7, 2006, B & N Daily Top Bestsellers in Roman Catholicism...

The surprise isn't that "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" is listed here or that it's listed twice, but rather what the #1 book is:

1.Praying the Rosary: With the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries
Michael Dubruiel, Amy Welborn / Hardcover
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $6.95

2.Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism
Douglas Brinkley, Julie Fenster, Julie M. Fenster / Hardcover
Usually ships within 24 hours
Our Price: $17.46
You Save: 30%

3.Mother Teresa: In My Own Words: 1910 - 1997
Mother Teresa / Hardcover
Usually ships within 2-3 days
Our Price: $5.99
You Save: 49%
4.Essential Rosary: With Prayers by Caryll Houselander
Caryll Houselander / Paperback
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $5.95

5.Rediscovering Catholicism: Journeying toward Our Spiritual North Star
Matthew Kelly, Matthew Kelley / Hardcover
Usually ships within 2-3 days
Our Price: $18.36
You Save: 20%

6.Holy Blood, Holy Grail
Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh / Paperback
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $13.50
You Save: 10%

7.Holy Blood, Holy Grail
Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh / Mass Market Paperback
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $7.99

8.Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles
Raymond Arroyo / Hardcover
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $19.16
You Save: 20%

9.Catholicism For Dummies
John Trigilio / Paperback
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $17.59
You Save: 20%

10.The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Henri J. M. Nouwen / Paperback
Usually ships within 24 hours - Same Day delivery in Manhattan
Our Price: $12.80
You Save: 20%

Amazon's Catholic Bestseller's (5/7/2006)

Always interesting, not sure how some get labeled "Catholic", anyway here it is the snapshot at 8:28 a.m on Sunday morning:

1. Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene : The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend
by Bart D. Ehrman Not Catholic

2. Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
by Libreria Editrice Vaticana

3. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code : A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine
by Bart D. Ehrman Not Catholic

4. The How-To Book of the Mass: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You
by Michael Dubruiel

5. My Life With the Saints
by James Martin

6. Breaking the Da Vinci Code : Answers to the Questions Everyone's Asking
by Darrell L. Bock Not Catholic

7. Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, And the Splendor of Truth
by Richard John Neuhaus

8. Return of the Prodigal Son
by Henri Nouwen

9. The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code
by Carl E. Olson, Sandra Miesel

10. Catechism of the Catholic Church : Second Edition
by U. S. Catholic Church, Catholic Church

Pope Ordains Priests for Rome and the Carmelites

From the homily via Asia News Italy:

In the homily, the pope highlighted some fundamental aspects of the priesthood in the image of the “Good Shepherd”.

1) The priest does not want “to personally become someone, but rather to be so for another, for Christ, and thus through Him and with Him, to be there for the men He seeks, who He wants to lead to the path of life. One enters the priesthood through the Sacrament – and this means precisely: through the total giving of self to Christ, so that He may use me, so that I may serve Him and follow his call, even if this should be in contrast with my desires of self-realisation and esteem. Entering the door, that is Christ, means knowing and loving him ever more, because our will becomes one with his and our behaviour becomes one thing with his.”

2) Celebrated each day, the Eucharist “should become for us a school of life, in which we learn to give our life. Life is not given only in the moment of death and not only in the moment of martyrdom. We must give it day after day. We must learn, day after day, that I do not possess my life for myself. Day after day, I must learn to abandon myself, to put myself at the disposal of that which He, the Lord, wants of me at that moment, even if other things appear more beautiful or important to me. Giving life, not taking it. And it is thus that we experience freedom. Freedom from ourselves, the enormity of being. It is in being useful that our life becomes important and beautiful. Only those who give their life, find it.

3) The priest must live in his intimate “relationship with Christ and through the Father, only then can we truly understand men, and then they will realise they have found a true shepherd”.

4) “The mission of Jesus regards all humanity, and so the Church is entrusted with a responsibility for all humanity, so that they may recognize God, that God who, for all of us, became man in Jesus Christ, suffered, died and rose. The Church should never be content with the line-up of those who have joined it at a certain point. It cannot withdraw comfortably within the borders of its own environment. It is entrusted with universal concern; it should concern itself about everyone. This great task must be “translated” in our respective missions. Obviously, a priest, a pastor of souls, should worry above all about those who believe and live with the Church, who seek there the path to life and who, for their part, are living stones, building the Church and thus together edifying and supporting the priest too. All the same, we must always once again – as the Lord days – go “into the roads and lanes” (Lk 14:23) to bear the invitation of God to his banquet to those men who so far have not yet heard anything, and who have not been touched inside.”

Regina Caeli Message of Pope

World Day of Prayer for Vocations...

From Asia News Italy:

The Pope told pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square: “In the message, I recalled the experience of the first apostles of Jesus who, after getting to know him at the lakeside and in the villages of Galilee, were conquered by his appeal and his love. The Christian vocation is always the renewal of this personal friendship with Jesus Christ, which gives full sense to one’s existence and makes it available for the Kingdom of God. The Church lives off such friendship, fed by the Word and the Sacraments, a sacred reality entrusted in a particular way to the ministry of Bishops, Presbyterians and Deacons, consecrated by sacrament of ordination. This is why – as I reiterated in the same message – the mission of priesthood is irreplaceable, and although in some places there is a shortage of clergy, there should be no doubt that God continues to call young people and adults to leave everything to dedicate themselves to preaching the Gospel and to pastoral ministry”.

The Pontiff also recalled “another special form of following Christ” that is “vocation to consecrated life, expressed in a poor, chaste and obedient existence completely dedicated to God, in contemplation and prayer, and at the service of one’s brothers, especially the meek and the poor”. He also emphasized that Christian marriage is a vocation in the full sense of the word, and that “the example of holy parents is the first condition that favours the flourishing of priestly and religious vocations.”

Before reciting the Easter prayer to Our Lady, the Pope called on all the faithful to invoke the “intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, for all priests and religious; let us pray so that the seeds of vocation that God sows in the hearts of the faithful may reach maturity and bear fruits of holiness in the Church and the world.”