Weekend Reading

Sorry for the late start, folks -- chalk it up to a midnight win out West.

Normally, you'd see a shot like the one at right when these pages are talking up vacancies. Today, though, it represents a different aspect of the bishop's office: the mandate of teaching, expressed in the chair, and most solemnly exercised in the writing of pastoral letters... two of which hit the wire late yesterday: Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik's The Church Living!, its focus on "standing up for the Gospel of Life"; and Sioux City Bishop Walker Nickless' first pastoral, Ecclesia Semper Reformanda (The Church Ever-Renewing), a programmatic, liturgically-rooted text "on the future of" northwest Iowa's 100,000-member diocese.

While Zubik's letter is the third in a series that's previously tackled the economy and the vocation of the People of God, Nickless' 16-page pastoral is likely to make the bigger waves given its sizable breadth of outlook and the Iowan's statement that "the so-called 'spirit' of [Vatican II]... is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord’s work" -- a declaration that's, indeed, already garnered high praise among church conservatives.

That said, read up... and for those checking out early, every good gift of the weekend.

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