VATICAN CITY — For the first time, Pope Benedict XVI will hold his weekly general audience in the main public square of Castel Gandolfo.

The main doors of the papal summer villa at Castel Gandolfo seen from the town square. (CNS)

The Vatican originally scheduled the pope’s Sept. 1 audience for St. Peter’s Square. The pope was supposed to helicopter back to the Vatican tomorrow morning, hold the audience in St. Peter’s Square, then head back to the summer villa at Castel Gandolfo, in the hills about 15 miles south of Rome.

But this morning, the Prefecture of the Papal Household announced that tomorrow’s audience will be in the main square outside the papal villa. The faithful can fill the square and the main street leading to it. And the pope will be seated in front of the main doors of the villa, the prefecture said.

If the pilgrims aren’t with a group that has a bus, they will have to catch an early morning train from Rome. Also, it might be more difficult to see the pope, but the entrance to the villa is sloped, so he will be a bit higher than the people in the square.

Generally, the pope’s audiences are suspended completely in late July to allow him time for a real vacation. Then in August and September, when he’s in residence at Castel Gandolfo, the decision to hold the audience in the villa’s courtyard or at the Vatican usually depends on how many people request tickets. The courtyard is small.

Notice in St. Peter's Square advising pilgrims that tomorrow's audience has been moved to Castel Gandolfo. (CNS)

Apparently, there were more requests this week than using the courtyard could satisfy, but not enough to force the pope to come back to the Vatican for the morning.

Visitors who arrived at the Vatican today to pick up their free tickets for tomorrow’s audience were advised in extra-large print. The video screens in the square, which usually are used to broadcast papal events, advised pilgrims that plans had changed.

VATICAN CITY — This year marks the 90th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s proclamation of Our Lady of Loreto as the patron of air travelers.

The Vatican is celebrating the anniversary with a new airmail letter sheet called an aerogram. Each sheet of the foldable, lightweight blue paper costs €1 (about $1.30) and includes the price of postage for sending it anywhere in the world.

(CNS/Vatican Philatelic Office)

Describing the story behind the aerogram, which will go on sale Sept. 20, the Vatican said, “The Holy House of Loreto is one of the most visited Marian shrines in Italy. Inside can be found the Holy House of Nazareth, the place where Our Lady received the Annunciation…. According to tradition, the Holy House was transported by angels from Nazareth to Italy.”

The bronze plate reproduced on the aerogram is sometimes mounted on the body of airplanes; it shows angels flying the house across the sea and, in Latin, invokes a safe flight.

VATICAN CITY — The Swiss archbishop chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to be the new head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity will be the featured speaker at a gathering with the pope and about three dozen of his former students.

The annual meeting of the “Ratzinger Schulerkreis” (Ratzinger student circle) begins tomorrow at Castel Gandolfo and will bring together about three dozen scholars who did their doctoral dissertations under the direction of the former Professor Father Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict. The “schulerkreis” has met regularly since the late 1970s and the practice continued even after the former professor became pope.

L’Osservatore Romano reported that discussions at this year’s meeting will focus on understanding the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the balance it tried to strike between reform and maintaining tradition.

Father Joseph Ratzinger, right, talks with an unidentified prelate in this photo taken in 1962 during the Second Vatican Council. The future pope attended all four sessions of the council as a theological adviser. (CNS/KNA)

The Vatican newspaper said the “schulerkreis” presented Pope Benedict with a list of possible speakers and the pope chose Archbishop Kurt Koch, the former bishop of Basel, Switzerland. The archbishop is the new head of the Vatican’s ecumenism office. Archbishop Koch will give one lecture on “The Second Vatican Council Between Tradition and Innovation,” and another on the council’s document on the liturgy and on the liturgical reforms it launched.

Archbishop Koch’s talks will be followed by discussion among the participants, including the pope, the Vatican newspaper said. The pope will celebrate Mass for his former students Sunday morning and have breakfast with them. Then the group will participate in the pope’s recitation of the Angelus.

The pope’s annual meetings with his former students are held behind closed doors, although participants have begun organizing the publication of each session’s papers. They will present the pope with the book containing the 2008 presentations by two Protestant theologians from Germany who were asked to offer their reflections on the historicity of the New Testament and on Christ’s own understanding of his passion and death.

Pope Benedict XVI wearing his signature red leather shoes made by an Italian artisan as he arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican in 2007. (CNS photo/Reuters)

VATICAN CITY — In a unique effort to help promote Christian unity, the pope’s shoemaker has made the same pair of shoes for both Pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

Italian cobbler Adriano Stefanelli fashioned a pair of white satin shoes for the pope and the same exact style in black for the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“It’s a small sign for strengthening the desire for Christian unity,” he told the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Aug. 25.

He said he’s done this before: making similar pairs for the pope and Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople as well as for the late Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II.

While he mailed Patriarch Kirill his pair, Stefanelli — who’s from Novara in northern Italy –  personally presented the pope with his new shoes at the end of today’s general audience at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

He gave the pope the white satin pair and a new pair of “ruby red” leather shoes, which the pope often wears in public.

It’s of course a myth that the pope’s shoes are made by Prada. Since 2003, Stefanelli has been one of a number of papal shoemakers.

Since Pope Benedict’s election in 2005, the 62-year-old artisan has donated  five pairs of hand-sewn shoes as well as one pair of “house slippers” and two pairs of hiking shoes to the pope. He’s also made shoes for Pope John Paul II, U.S. President Barack Obama and Lech Walesa.

When he crafts the pope’s shoes, Stefanelli says he aims for a simple design with nothing fancy and he adds “a very thin layer of anti-skid tread” to the leather sole.

Interesting tidbit: Pope Benedict’s shoe size is a 42, which in the U.S. is an 8 1/2 men’s.

Susan Boyle took the world by surprise when she sang “I Dreamed a Dream” on the television talent show “Britain’s Got Talent.” But she says her “greatest dream come true” is the opportunity to sing for Pope Benedict XVI.

Susan Boyle on "Britain's Got Talent" in 2009. (CNS/ITV)

The Scottish bishops’ conference confirmed last week that Boyle would be involved in the program of the pope’s Sept. 16 visit to Scotland and they provided details today.

Boyle will sing three songs at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in addition to singing with the 800-member choir at the Mass the pope will celebrate.

Before the liturgy, she will sing the hymn “How Great Thou Art” and her signature song, “I Dreamed a Dream.” After the final hymn at the end of the Mass, she also will sing a farewell song to the pope, but the bishops did not say what song.

The organizers of a campaign to bring survivors of clergy sexual abuse around the world to the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square Oct. 31 say the event will open what they are calling a “Year of the Survivor.”

Abuse survivors Bernie McDaid and Gary Bergeron of greater Boston told Catholic News Service that the year is meant to focus on survivors and their spiritual, physical and psychological needs.

“It’s never been done before. There’s never been a time when survivors have come together,” Bergeron said.

To help spread the word, McDaid and Bergeron have launched a website, www.SurvivorsVoice.org.

The site offers information about the planned Vatican gathering, statistics on the impact of abuse on survivors and opportunities to support survivors.

The men are hoping enough survivors and supporters make the trip to Rome to ring St. Peter’s Square for a candlelight vigil at nightfall.

They also have settled on a simple message to spread: “Enough.”

“I think the one universal term everyone around the world can agree to is ‘enough,’” Bergeron told CNS. “It’s time we got together and said, ‘This is enough.’”

Since first announcing the gathering in April, McDaid has been working with survivors globally. He said he recently returned from Ireland to gain support from abuse survivor organizations. He said German abuse survivors have been in touch.

Survivors also plan to leave a basket of letters at the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica seeking the support of church officials, McDaid said.

He compared the planned offering to the action of Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who nailed his 95 Theses to the doors of All Saints’ Church  (Castle Church) in Wittenberg, Germany, Oct. 31, 1517, marking the start of the Reformation. The monk’s document criticized elements of Catholic belief and practice, particularly the selling of indulgences.

Bergeron hopes the effort will focus worldwide attention on all abuse survivors, not those who were victims of Catholic clergy.

“It’s not just a Catholic issue,” he said. “But we really need to change the way the world views the issue.”

VATICAN CITY — The Swiss Guards spent their summer vacation in Bavaria, making a pilgrimage to places associated with the early life of Pope Benedict XVI.

Msgr. Alain de Raemy, the corps’ chaplain, told the Vatican newspaper that after a successful group pilgrimage in 2006 “in the footsteps of St. Martin of Tours,” their patron, the Swiss Guards decided to do a pilgrimage together every few years.

For the 2010 trek, some suggested the Holy Land, others mentioned the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland, but Bavaria won “for various reasons, especially to help the guards understand more closely the personality of the pontiff through direct contact with his birthplace, his land, his people,” the chaplain said.

Obviously, all the guards did not go at the same time; even though the pope is on vacation, a group of guards are on duty at all times both at the papal summer villa and at the Vatican.

The chaplain said the pilgrimage was conducted three times this summer with each tour involving 30 to 40 guards.

Marktl am Inn, the Bavarian village where Pope Benedict XVI was born. (CNS/Reuters)

Pope Benedict looks at a copy of the first volume of his work, "Jesus of Nazareth." The first volume came out in 2007.

VATICAN CITY — We’ve known for a while that the second volume of Pope Benedict XVI’s work, “Jesus of Nazareth,” would be out by the spring of next year.

Salesian Father Giuseppe Costa, director of the Vatican Publishing House, has finally set the target date for the book’s worldwide release: the first Sunday of Lent, March 13, 2011.

In an interview with Vatican Radio yesterday, Father Costa said that by Jan. 15, they plan on delivering translated texts to publishers in different countries so those publishers can prepare their own national editions.

Writing in his native language, German, the pope finished writing the second volume on the life of Jesus in May and the text went to a team of Vatican translators at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

The Vatican wants the book to be released simultaneously in major languages. And Lent is a perfect time to launch Volume 2, which treats Christ’s passion and resurrection.

A husband and wife build a makeshift tent from sticks less than three weeks after Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake. Reports on the ground indicate that little has changed in the camps more than seven months since the disaster occurred. (CNS/Bob Roller)

Seven months after the Jan. 12 earthquake, a large part of Haiti continues to reel in the aftermath of the disaster. Haitians are praying and hoping that relief comes their way soon and that summer tropical storms bypass their country.

A brief description of life in the displaced persons camps arrived this week from Junior Sinsmyr, the young man whom CNS photographer Bob Roller and I hired as a driver and interpreter during our 10 days of reporting from the Port-au-Prince area following the quake.

Writing in an e-mail, Sinsmyr, who lost his home and continues to live in a tent community near the international airport, described the situation as confused, even worse than in the days following the earthquake.

“I already change three tents,” he wrote in English, his second language, “’cause rain and sun fall them apart, break them.

“Things are difficult here for those like me. The hunger is the first. Beside this, when the quake was just happened, it was so frustrated, but finding help easier than now. People do not care about others now,” he said.

Sinsmyr’s message was followed by one from Archbishop Bernardito Auza, papal nuncio to Haiti. He also wrote that life is hardly any better in the hundreds of tent camps that sprouted in the broad earthquake zone in the days after the disaster.

“It’s always emergency from the humanitarian perspective,” the archbishop said. “The camps are always the same as they were days after the earthquake. Some say that instead of diminishing, the camp populations have seen an increase, at least in some, attracted by aid distribution and possibility of cash-for-work, as well as the impossibility of finding better alternatives.”

Efforts by agencies such as Catholic Relief Services to provide transitional housing has helped some homeless Haitians, but the overwhelming majority of displaced people remain under improvised shelter, he said.

“It’s one solution to depopulate the camps and make sure the house is built on properties verified by owners,” Archbishop Auza continued. “There are some NGOs (nongovernment organizations) that prefer to build permanent housing. But we are light years away from fulfilling the demands.”

The archbishop said 250,000 homes are needed to house the 1.5 million people who remain in the camps. “We are still so far from that.”

It’s that time of year again that college administrators both love and hate: the annual ranking of the schools by U.S. News and World Report. Rankings are subjective at best; different organizations have different criteria for choosing who gets the top spot — or the bottom one. Nevertheless, all higher education eyes — and not a few eyes of parents and students — pay close attention.

Catholic colleges and universities did well again. USN&WR sorts its rankings by national schools, national liberal arts schools that mainly concentrate on undergraduate education, and regional schools that draw heavily from their area of the country. The magazine does not rank schools outside of the U.S.

Here are the top ones. You can get the entire listings here.

In the listing for best national colleges and universities, the University of Notre Dame was the top Catholic school at 19th. Georgetown University came in at 21st. Boston College ranked 31st, and Fordham University took 56th. Marquette University ranked 75th, St. Louis University 86th and the University of Dayton 99th. Loyola University of Chicago tied with the University of San Francisco at 117th. The Catholic University of America and Duquense University also tied at 120th. St. Thomas University (St. Paul, Minn.) followed at 124th. DePaul University and Seton Hall University tied at 136th. St. John’s University (Jamaica, N.Y.) took the 143rd spot. Immaculata University ranked 176th, and St. Mary’s University of Minnesota at 183rd was the final Catholic school in the magazine’s tier-one listing. Others were listed among tier-two schools.

Among the best liberal arts schools, the College of Holy Cross ranked first among Catholic colleges at 32nd. St. John’s University (Collegeville, Minn.) followed at 62nd. Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula, Calif.) ranked 71st. The College of St. Benedict (St. Joseph, Minn.) came in at 81. St. Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Ind.) tied with St. Michael’s College for 93rd place. Sienna College (Loudonville, N.Y.) took the 114th spot. St. Anselm College was at 122th, St. Norbert College followed at 127th, and St. Vincent College (Latrobe, Pa.) ranked 152nd. The last Catholic school among tier-one schools was Carroll College (Helena, Mont.).

Catholic schools fared even better among regional listing, crowding top spots. I’m only listing the schools that fell in the top 25 here.

In the North of the U.S. the first four spots were held by Villanova University, Providence College, Loyola University Maryland and Fairfield University respectively. Marist University tied with the University of Scranton for 10th place. St. Joseph’s University came in 13th, followed by LaSalle University at 19. Canisius College ranked 20th. Mount St. Mary’s University (Emmitsburg, Md.) fell in at 22nd, and Nazareth College (Rochester, N.Y.) won 25th.

In the South, Loyola University New Orleans was the top ranking Catholic school at 7th. Bellarmine College  was 12th, Spring Hill College was 17th and Christian Brothers University was 21st. Wheeling Jesuit University and Xavier University of Louisiana tied for 22nd.

In the Midwest, Creighton University took first place. Xavier University (Cincinnati) came in 3rd. John Carroll University ranked 7th. The College of St. Catherine was 17th, followed by Dominican College (River Forest, Ill.) at 19th. The College of St. Scholastica tied with Rockhurst University for 24th place.

In the vast West, Santa Clara University, Loyola Marymount University and Gonzaga University respectively took the 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots. Seattle University closely followed in 6th place, with the University of Portland at 9th. St. Mary’s College of California ranked 12th. The University of Dallas came in 15th. St. Mary’s University of San Antonio ranked 19th with St. Edward’s University at 21. Mount St. Mary College (Los Angeles) came in at 25.

You either hate or love rankings, and the criteria change from organization to organization and from year to year. But most reasonable people would agree that the best college or university in the country is the one where a student thrives.

Ever wanted to see what our newsroom looks like?

OK, so maybe that’s not at the top of your “bucket list,” but you can see it anyway in a story that was aired last week on PBS’s “Nightly Business Report” featuring one of our summer interns, Felix Rivera.

The PBS story was on whether companies take advantage of interns and run afoul of the law by not paying them. Rivera told PBS he had a great experience interning for CNS and didn’t mind not being paid because the experience he gained is worth far more than money. He interned with CNS through the Fund for American Studies, which runs several programs for college students and places journalism students with news organizations for the summer.

Here’s the link to the PBS program. Hover your cursor over the video and drag the timeline bar to approximately 18:27. Our intern, who is headed back to Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Alaska, is interviewed at both the beginning and the end of the three-minute story.

The economy has been tough on institutions of higher education in the United States. This week, the U.S. Department of Education issued a report listing 150 non-profit private colleges and universities that failed to meet federal guidelines for fiscal responsibility, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education. The findings are based on fiscal performance for 2009. The number is 23 more than failed in 2008 and it represents a 70 percent increase over 2007, the Chronicle said.

The failure to meet the fed’s criteria usually represents an institutions “financial fragility,” but the downturn in the economy over the last two years has hit many college and university endowments particularly hard. The determination to list a school is based on several criteria, including debt, assets, and operating deficits and surpluses. The schools are required to participate in the DoE’s evaluation of how they award federal aid to students.

Sixteen Catholic colleges and universities made the list. Two have made the list for three straight years: Ave Maria School of Law in Florida and the College of Our Lady of the Elms in Massachusetts. This is the second year that Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire was listed. The first-timers are Brescia University in Kentucky; Newman University in Kansas; University of St. Mary of the Lake and Dominican University in Illinois; the University of St. Thomas in Texas; Rockhurst University in Missouri; Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina; Chestnut Hill College and Rosemont College in Pennsylvania; Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia; and the Dominican College of Blauvelt in New York.

The report also list many for-profit colleges and universities.

Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, Japan, talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about the history of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki Aug. 5. The original cathedral was built in 1914, but was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945. Ban visited Nagasaki ahead of the 65th anniversary of the Aug. 9 atomic bombing of the city. (CNS photo/Junko Ito, Catholic Weekly of Japan)

Sixty-five years ago two bombs opened the nuclear era, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) and sending humanity on a new course.

Aug. 6 is also the feast of the Transfiguration, the time when Christ, joined by Peter, John and James, went up what traditionally has been identified as Mount Tabor in Galilee and was transfigured before their eyes. Matthew tells us that Christ’s face “shone like the sun and his garments became as white as light.”

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and who at times has been promoted as a candidate for sainthood, offered her thoughts on the bombings shortly after they occurred in the Sept. 1, 1945 issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper. Her reflection connects the bombings with the Transfiguration event and, not mincing words, leads the reader to ponder the words of Christ in relation to how our brothers and sisters in the world are treated in relationship. She contrasts the U.S. sense of triumphalism that followed the bombings and the dangerous road on which the world had embarked.

You can read the readings from Mass today here.

The monsoon-type rains are continuing in Pakistan, where the government aid agency says 12 million people have been affected, but expects that number could rise to half a million.

BBC News quotes Gen. Nadeem Ahmed of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority as saying, “This will be the biggest disaster in the history of Pakistan.”

On the blog for Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development agency, staffers talk about the need for clean water, especially for drinking. Their headline: “In Pakistan, Water Everywhere — and Not a Drop to Drink.”

“We have to drink water from the river but it is so dirty. But we have no other options because the floodwaters damaged our water source and washed away our pipes,” the CRS blog reports, quoting a man in the northern town of Besham whose home and land were swept away. “My family is getting sick. Today, I took my 15-month-old son to the hospital because he has diarrhea and a high fever. If the water problem is not solved, I do not know what I will do.”

Press release just issued by the USCCB:

WASHINGTON-Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the August 4 decision of a federal judge to overturn California voters’ 2008 initiative that protected marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“Marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of any society. The misuse of law to change the nature of marriage undermines the common good,” Cardinal George said. “It is tragic that a federal judge would overturn the clear and expressed will of the people in their support for the institution of marriage. No court of civil law has the authority to reach into areas of human experience that nature itself has defined.”

Joining Cardinal George in his criticism of the court decision was Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage. Archbishop Kurtz noted that “Citizens of this nation have uniformly voted to uphold the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman in every jurisdiction where the issue has been on the ballot. This understanding is neither irrational nor unlawful,” he said. “Marriage is more fundamental and essential to the well being of society than perhaps any other institution. It is simply unimaginable that the court could now claim a conflict between marriage and the Constitution.”

Young people who lost a limb in Haiti's earthquake will receive up to three prosthetics during the next two years under the Knights of Columbus' Hope for Haiti's Children program. (CNS/Bob Roller)

The estimated 800 Haitian children who lost an arm or a leg because of the country’s violent earthquake Jan. 12 will get prosthetic limbs and therapy courtesy of the Knights of Columbus.

The effort, called Hope for Haiti’s Children, was first announced by Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson as he gave his annual report Aug.3 during the organization’s convention in Washington.

More details of the two-year program were announced at a Washington press conference Aug. 4.

Estimated to cost at least $1 million, the Knights are partnering with the University of Miami’s Project Medishare for Haiti to make the prosthetic devices available.

Each child will receive three prosthetics and all necessary therapy during the two-year period.

Earlier this year, the Knights teamed up with the California-based American Wheelchair Mission to deliver more than 1,000 wheelchairs to Haiti for people who suffered crushing injuries in the quake. The wheelchairs were donated to patients at a field hospital at the Port-au-Prince airport operated by the University of Miami.

The Knights also plan to deliver another 1,000 wheelchairs over the next several months.

“Each and every one of these children will receive a new start in life thanks to the Knights of Columbus,” Anderson told the convention delegates.

CRS aid worker Jacques Montouroy shows Haitians in a makeshift tent camp how to cut washers from rubber tubing a few weeks after the country's devastating earthquake. (CNS/Lane Hartill, Catholic Relief Services)

Catholic Relief Services lost a true humanitarian July 29 in the person of Jacques Montouroy.

He died from complications from an ulcer, according to CRS. He was 63.

In his 41 years with the U.S .bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, “Papa Jacques,” as he was known, worked in some of the most God-forsaken places on earth under extremely difficult conditions: Haiti after the January earthquake, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia in their wars. Yet he persisted in meeting the needs of others in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

Lane Hartill, regional information office for CRS in West Africa, writes about the life of his colleague in a post on CRS Voices, the agency’s blog. His reflection on Montouroy depicts a man whose life was rooted in Gospel values as he tried to serve the poorest and most forgotten people of the world.

Montouroy never married. His family was the people he served and the people he worked with. Hartill says Montouroy never sought the spotlight and never liked to have his picture taken.

From the sound of it, he surely will be missed.

Once again, stories from our Rome bureau and actions by the Vatican figured prominently in our monthly list of most-viewed stories for July on our public website, www.catholicnews.com.  I say our “public” site because, as many of you know, we also have a password-protected site for our clients, where they can download and publish any number of stories in addition to the stories listed below.

Here’s the list for July, in case you missed seeing any of these stories:

1. Long, hot summer: Vatican faces external and internal challenges (July 2)

Our story on Catholic talk-show host Lino Rulli's unusual pilgrimage to Rome was one of the most viewed for July. (CNS/Paul Haring)

2. Catholic radio host leads listeners on unusual pilgrimage to Italy (July 21)

3. Vatican says new norms will strengthen efforts against abusive priests (July 15)

4. Revised Vatican norms to cover sex abuse, attempted women’s ordination (July 9)

5. Archbishop: Norms on women’s ordination reflect sacraments’ importance (July 15)

6. Rome Diocese calls for active gay priests to go, stop sullying church (July 23)

7. Anglicans expect exodus after Church of England OKs women bishops (July 13)

8. USCCB issues guidelines for use of social media (July 20)

9. Case of dismissed Catholic professor is under review (July 14)

10. Bishops, other faith leaders commend ruling on Arizona immigration law (July 29)

VATICAN CITY — If you want to explore every nook and cranny of St. Peter’s Basilica but don’t want to fight the crowds, just click here on the Vatican website.

The Villanova team checks images shot in January in St. Peter's Basilica. (CNS/Paul Haring)

A team of faculty and students from Pennsylvania’s Villanova University spent hours shooting hundreds of photos of the basilica and months digitally stitching them together so the Vatican could put a virtual tour of the world’s largest Christian church online.

The virtual tour of St. Peter’s is the fifth Villanova project released by the Vatican. You can also use your computer to tour the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls and the Sistine Chapel.

Catholics in England will have to pay to attend some events during Pope Benedict XVI’s Sept. 16-19 trip to Scotland and England, according to reports in our client paper in London, the Catholic Herald. Catholics will pay 25 pounds ($39) to attend the beatification Mass at Birmingham’s Cofton Park Sept. 19, and the 1,000 priests concelebrating also will have to pay. Attendees at the Sept. 18 vigil at London’s Hyde Park will pay 10 pounds. Read the reasoning behind ticket distribution and prices.

In Washington, Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, the U.S. bishops’ media relations director who has been involved in the planning of three papal trips, said no admission was ever charged for the U.S. events.

In Britain, since tickets will be hard to come by, Catholics are being encouraged to line the streets to see Pope Benedict.