PEOPLE

A Catholic priest in Pompeii, Italy, denied Communion to Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo Jan. 10. Milingo attended an early evening Mass with Maria Sung, the woman he married in a Unification church ceremony in 2001. Milingo, 77, responded by blessing the celebrant and touching his head. Milingo was excommunicated after he began ordaining married men to the priesthood in 2007. He is in Italy promoting a book, Confessions of an Excommunicated Man.

Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe, a Venezuelan-born Princeton scientist who is a strong environmentalist and believer in global warming, was appointed Jan. 10 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Vatican’s chief think tank on scientific issues, by Pope Benedict XVI. He has said that Darwinian evolution poses no conflict with religious faith and that the rival school of intelligent design has been “completely rejected” on a purely scientific basis. He is a hydrologist.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, ran a story Jan. 8 by Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, that advocates Catholics receive Communion on the tongue while kneeling. Drawing on teaching from the patristic period (circa 110-450), Schneider compared Communion to breastfeeding. Just as a baby opens his mouth to receive nourishment from his mother, so should Catholics open their mouths to receive nourishment from Jesus, he wrote.

Franciscan Sr. Sean Marie Tobin joined the Green Bay Packers on the turf at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., Jan. 12 for the coin toss to start the playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks. Tobin was named an honorary “G-Force Captain” as a prize in an essay contest. In her entry, she wrote about being a Packers fan since 1945.
 

National Catholic Reporter, January 25, 2008