Tip-Off Thursday

At noon today, the ball goes up on another year of March Madness... by then, however, today's fortnightly meeting of the Congregation for Bishops will already have made it into the books.

Lest anyone missed it the first time, the chancery pool:

On a side-note, the NCAA champ might indeed get a trophy and bragging rights... but not even these can trump the rare-air perk that, once upon a time, came with the reins of the nation's largest local church. (For the record, the latter's long since been retired.)

And speaking of Big Dances, this weekend sees the Angeleno church's signature event -- the 44th annual Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, its annual turnout of 40,000-plus the largest regular gathering of the Stateside church's leadership, and American Catholicism's biggest "family reunion" of all... well, west of Carthage, Missouri.

In a first, the bulk of Congress will be webstreamed beginning Friday, with on-demand viewing available via YouTube for the 24 hours hence.

That said, the weekend's climactic half will be missing its leading light as Cardinal Roger Mahony heads to Washington, where he'll celebrate a Sunday Mass for Immigrants before joining the church-backed "March for America" that'll call for immigration reform through the afternoon on the capital's National Mall.

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