One of the truly great things about the Church is that regardless of how great other aspects of life are, It can always do those things one better. We often rely on sport, television, and Hollywood for our dose of drama. This past week has been better drama than anything else I've ever seen in my life. Best of all it wasn't manufactured, and it included the happiest of endings.
I can't help but recommend the
April 19th evening edition(25mb mp3) of the
Catholic Insider podcast. It would be most interesting to you if you started with the April 1st edition, or so, and went forward, because of the first-hand accounts of Pope John Paul II's health, death, and funeral. Then comes the first-hand audio accounts of a priest waiting for the election of our next Holy Father. Even knowing the outcome, it sends shivers down spines listening to the we-have-a-pope-maybe-we-don't-yes-we-do emotional back-and-forth of this program. This is the purest of entertainment. It's something that has all of the elements of the best Hollywood movie with the greatest of worldly consequences.
After you listen I'd love to hear what you think of this (I'm sure Fr. Roderick would, too).
It's going to be an interesting situation that arises as podcasts become more popular. Apparently ASCAP is starting to "license" podcasters to use commercial material for their programs. In other words, they are going to make podcasters pay for the chance to promote the music they love. One Minneapolis law student suggests that
this might be out of their bounds. I'm not sure that it is, but it's going to be interesting, still, to see what happens when podcasters knowingly play music they aren't licensed to play. It happens already, usually with a little jab at the RIAA.
