Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Not With a Whimper, But With a Bang

Well, it's out.

The Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education was released at 0900 Rome time (3am Eastern) today. Precisely one minute later, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops posted its press release on the PR Newswire.

Summaries are everywhere, and if you're listening to BBC Radio (as I am), you'd think that the Pope was dead again because of all the celebrity Catholics who've been pulled in to comment. There is no text up in webpage format, but the Conference has posted the definitive document as a .pdf Adobe file, so knock yourselves out.

The text is no surprise -- it is precisely the same document as was leaked last week to Adista and, with the translation of Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent of The Tablet, made its English-language debut right here.

In my mainstream capacity as commentator on things Catholic and a US correspondent for The Tablet, I'm open for interviews, backgrounders, etc. I can be reached via e.mail.

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