Some news briefs from an alternate universe ....
Pope visits the poor ....
In response to Cardinal Kasper's tasteless remark about the UK being like a third world country, Benedict canceled his meetings with the Queen and the Prime Minister and instead met with the impoverished immigrants of London, whereupon he bade Kasper wash their feet
Pope meets with Richard Dawkins ....
In a move nobody saw coming, Benedict led the attendees of his Hyde Park prayer vigil to Downing Street where Richard Dawkins was speaking to a pope-protesting crowd. The pope encouraged the two groups to fraternize and invited Dawkins to discuss their differences in private over a beer.
B16 fires Cardinal Bernard Law ....
Breaking with his standard packaged private meetings with sex abuse victims, Benedict arranged a public forum, televised, in which he listened to everyone who wished to speak, acknowledged church cover-ups of abuse, and announced that Cardinal Law and others who had abused or covered up abuse were being defrocked even as he spoke.
The Pope goes ecumenical ....
In an historic ecumenical move, B16 invited Rowan Williams to co-celebrate the Eucharist with him at the Westminster Cathedral mass, citing a prayer akin to that of Peter's in Acts 19-11 as his inspiration.
Newman beatification ....
Crowds in Birmingham were surprised when the pope announced at the ceremony to beatify Cardinal Newman that the proto-saint would be named the patron of the laity, and that he planned, in Newman's honor, to create a body of lay people to contribute to the making of church doctrine.
Ok, I'm stopping now - this is actually making me kind of depressed :/
