It is time for you to vote for your favorite photo caption from last week’s
A Nun’s Life photo caption contest.

Instead of choosing finalists, we decided to let you vote on all contest submissions!

To vote for your favorite caption, respond to the poll below. Click on your favorite caption and then press the “Done” button at the bottom of the survey. Only one vote per computer.

The winner will be announced on Wednesday!

On Wednesday we broadcast our first live podcast here at A Nun’s Life. You’ll notice a new widget on our sidebar which is an audio player for our live podcasts and past episodes. Be sure to listen to our first podcast Lying Awake Book Discussion 08-12-09.

Sister Maxine and I are in the process of creating regular podcasts–both live and pre-recorded–for the A Nun’s Life community. We’ll be exploring topics similar to what we are doing on the blog while at the same time taking full advantage of the benefits of an audio format.

We have two live podcasts already scheduled. Today at noon CST (time zone converter) we will pray The Angelus live with you. Join us for a 15-minute sacred pause at midday.

On Tuesday at 1 p.m. CST (time zone converter) next week we will be interviewing Brother Paul Bednarczyk, CSC, Executive Director of the National Religious Vocation Conference, and Patrice Tuohy, Executive Editor of VISION Vocation Guide. They’ll join us to discuss the newly released study on Catholic Vocations and Religious Life. This is a very important study and I encourage you to click on the link to read through the executive summary and other related resources. We’d like you to join us by listening and also submitting your questions using the comment box below or during the live broadcast there will be a chat box that you can use to ask questions.

For an email reminder for the Tuesday podcast, please leave a comment below with your correct email or email us (NOTE: your email address is never made public). We’ll give you more details this weekend about the survey and the Tuesday podcast.

Now we get into the hopes people have regarding The Pope’s Visit. These responses come from my survey on The Pope’s visit (See all results posted thus far at “The Pope’s Visit Survey“.

In the survey, I asked the following:

How do you hope the Pope’s visit will affect the Catholic and/or US community?

Here are the results. Many responses hit on these significant themes: unity, hope, reconciliation and healing, encouragement, connection to the American context, justice and care for God’s creation, renewal, and faithfulness.

The results are unedited and in no particular order. Anything you’d like to add in response to this survey question?

• revive faith and belief/acceptance of ALL doctrine.
• I hope his love for God and people remind us of what is important in life. I also hope people see the profound simplicity of this man (he did not attend the State dinner at the White House, he was so joyful at seeing people in Washington.) He exudes kindness and compassion, and I think he is a wonderful example.
• It’s already made my coworkers ask about my faith and the Catholic church. Discussion.
• more unity and enthusiasm
• I think it will be needed attention to those who have been abused. It will inspire some to convert. It encourage those who identify, but may not embrace the religion completely.
• He really has very little effect on the US community or the ordinary catholic.
• I would hope that the unfairly blown-out-of-proportion, media-manufactured ‘sex scandal’ would be set aside finally; and that the Papal visit could unify American Catholics into a force for true social justice, one which loudly and publicly disclaims the scornful and shameful acts of nominally-Christian hyper-conservative extremists such as Fred Phelps, and seeks to bring the love, respect, and tolerance that Catholicism stands for back into the forefront of our faith’s public image.
• I wish he’d give the bishops a back bone to take a stand on politicians who receive communion but vote for abortions
• To give inspiration and hope in faith to an increasingly secular society.
• I hope that his visit continues to open the renewed spiritual awareness/revitalization that is happening in the US.
• I think that Trad’s will be happy.
• bring about a revival of faith
• I hoped that he would meet with victims of pedophile priests as they have been trying to meet with him for years. I would hope that he follows his words of being ashamed by actions – actually seeing that abusers are kicked out of the priesthood. On another note, I would hope that his message of peace would get through to Pres. Bush so that this war can finally end.
• Catholic Identity
• More unity.
• hope he can help the churchs image after the child abuse scandals
• Greater unity of spirit.
• I hope it will encourage American Catholics to a greater dedication to their faith and that it will help foster more vocations.
• I don’t think it will. I think it is too little too late. The church appears to have shut herself off from the people.
• I hope that Catholics will become very spirited and active in this world!
• Both. The Catholic Church is in need of healing, and Benedict may be the instrument. The US community needs the moral compass and integrity the Pope is.
• I would like to hear him speak to the public about how important it is that we do not lose our faith, especially in these times.
• I don’t think it will have any affect
• I would like to see a return to high liturgical practice (not the saying in Latin, but the reverence of high church for Eucharist and the traditional practice of liturgy. I would like to see Bishops brought to task for breaking cannon law in their practice of the liturgy.
• I’m hoping it’ll draw together the polarization we’ve had since 2000.
• Hope, healing and belief for the US Catholic Church
• Renewal and reconciliation.
• Unify!
• I hope we as the Catholic community will form a more personal connection with him.
• Healing. Inspire non-practicing Catholics to return to the faith and non-Catholics to see the richness of the Catholic faith.
• I hope the by his visit, he will be a sign of witness to the American Catholic community of Christ’s love and unity.
• I hope the Pope will be open enough to actually listen to the views of American Catholics, instead of ignoring them or trying to shut them down, but I have no great expectations.
• It would be nice to have him put the Church’s teachings in context for Americans.
• Strengthen and encourage Catholic community, esp. in the matter of vocations; help turn the mind of the country at large from conservatism towards morality, from moral relativism towards justice.
• For once the US Church will get to show its beautiful face during the coverage of the Papal liturgies instead of the media’s focus on the negative. And the Pope’s address to the UN will show how the Church can and does call all of us to peace and global responsibility. We are relevant in modern society!
• Healing
• I hope that it shows Catholics and non-Catholics that the Pope hears, listens and understands the US citizens’ anger, distrust, fear and hope ( a genuine hope on the part of believers of all faiths and at a minimum even a cynical hope from all others).
• Give us a greater sense of hope in efforts to be creation-centered and sensitive to ecological issues of Mother Earth.
• If he could teach us to look to the poor & vulnerable in our society…
• That Catholics here will be on fire for God and correct our sinful ways and be true to the gospel
• My hope is that it will renew the American Church, awake many of us from our apathy towards faith, renew in us an obedience to orthodox Church teaching, and I hope it will affect the entire American community in our recognition of human rights and the unreasonableness of war.
• I hope the visit will have everyone, and the Church, examine the many “big world” moral issues of the day (war, starvation, poverty)and be candid about the differences in thought and action on those issues between the US government, the Church, and the world’s peoples.
• Excite people about the possibility for imporvement. Truth is universal – discouraging people from discovering/learning/interpreting scripture is a fear mechanism – Truth should never have to operate in fear.
• I would hope for his visit to help reunite the community and remind the leaders of the true/real reason for the being of the Catholic church.
• I hope that Americans will be open to his message of love and hope and respect. I hope his visit will have a positive and maybe healing effect on people who have been wounded by the recent scandals or any kind of feelings of non-acceptance.
• Honestly, I really loved JPII & am still partial to him, but I guess I hope Benedict just gives the US Church some love & listening. There is enough moralizing out of Rome – just visit us as a “papa”. Oh & I hope he gives Bush an earful about the war!
• Bring the Church closer together.
• I hope that people are able to hear his strong positions on the need for peace in Iraq, the need to alleviate global poverty, the need for humanitarian solutions to the US immigration challenge, and the need to protect Earth from environmental destruction. Unfortunately, the only position that is ever picked up on in the media is the anti-abortion one.
• Hopefully cause the Catholic church in America to get its act together. We’re a lazy bunch.
• Renew a sense of hope for the institution and quicken a sense of spirituality among the faithful and a stimulate wonder within the non-faithful.

More results from my survey on The Pope’s Visit (see my previous post “The Pope’s Visit Survey — some stats“) …

In the survey, I asked the following:

“Say you ran into the Pope on the street … what is the one thing you would love to know from him, respectfully?”

Here are the results. They are unedited and in no particular order except that I broadly categorized between Church/Theology and Personal. Interestingly these responses reflect many of the thoughts and feelings that many have expressed via the media, websites, blogs, twitter, etc. since the Pope has been here. Anything you’d like to add in response to this survey question?

Church/Theology

• Why the Catholic church has so many rules. Why he has not taken stronger action against the priests who allowed known sexual abusers to go from one parish to another
• do you really think that someday, everyone will be catholic?
• why can’t the church approve women priests and married clergy? and don’t tell me it’s because Jesus said so!
• The restriction on women in the clergy gives Catholicism the appearance of backward-thinking or traditionalism at the expense of flexibility. Aside from expanding the role of nuns, what steps would be feasible at this time or in the near future for introducing a greater female presence in ordained ministry?
• What happens to unborn babies, do they really not go to real heaven? Do they really just go to a happy place?
• I heard today that the Pope blamed a larger culture of secularism for part of the pedophile scandal in the Church. As an agnostic I was outraged by that comment, so I would love to know why on earth he would blame the criminal behaviour of certain priests on secularism, when that is certainly not the case.
• What is the church going to do about dwindling numbers? Does the church care?
• What are your deepest wishes for the Church?
• How is living in the vatican? Why does the vatican have so many secrets; what does it have to hide from us?
• Help me to fully understand why some orders of priests cannot be married. How does the practice of married priests in any way go against Tradition of the early Chruch or the practice of the Bible?
• If he could do over one thing from his time at the CDF, what would he do over and why?
• In view of the shortage of priests to serve in the parishes, is there any research/thought/prospect of solving that problem through married priests?
• Does he really believe himself to be infallibale?
• Whether he will continue the tradition of not ordaining women to priesthood and whether he will continue to open pre-Vatican II traditions to the faithful who wish to see a return of these rituals.
• Why does he treat women as second-class Catholics, when St. Paul said that there is neither male nor female in the kingdom of God but all are equal in Christ? (The inequality of women is why I left Roman Catholicism and am now Quaker.
• How he can defend the treatment of women by the Church?
• What would you see as the greatest hope and possibility for relegating world hunger to history books?
• How can we bring the worlds major religions closer together and work together for common causes, esp. peace and social/economic justice?
• After apologizing for running into him, I would ask him to recommend a good anthology (including his own writings) on the “Anonymous Christian Doctrine.”
• 1) Why doesn’t the catholic church support ordination for women? Do you beleive that Jesus’s teachings support this notion? Do you think blindly following tradition is a good thing? 2) Why have we not been actively addressing the horrendous (billions of dollars in sex abuse settlements) problem in our church systems. Do you truly believe that over 3 billion dollars in hush money equals an “individual traitor” problem or a systematic problem? 3) Did you always aspire to be the Pope? 4) Do you think there is a fundamental diconnect between church leadership and lay members? Is there a plan to address this issue?
• I would love to ask him, respectfully, when and how he got hooked on Prada shoes.
• Why does the Catholic Church excommunicate people? Doesn’t God grant forgiveness if you’re truly repentant?
• I would like him to explain, in a way I can understand, why the Catholic Church is held superior to other churches. My mother (who is Baptist) certainly doesn’t agree!
• What is your fondest wish for the future of the Church?

Personal

• Does it make you uncomfortable to have people kiss your ring?
• How do you do it?
• I think I’d be too awed to respond.
• I would ask the Pope if I could have a ride in the Popemobile.
• What are the challenges to being a Pope?
• what do you do for fun?
• I would like to know how he stays focused and hopeful when the stress of the call seesm overwhelming?
• What is your favorite musical piece (he loves piano!)
• How does he pray?
• If he would say a prayer for me.
• How he prevent himself from succumbing to the comfort of riches and luxuries.
• Does he feel that he’s overshodowed by the memeory of JPII?
• With all the poverty in today’s world, how can he wear such fancy shoes and allow such fanfare and money to go into his visit?
• What does your private prayer life look like? What non-religious book are you reading now?
• How do you like being the German Shepherd?
• Holy Father, how do you, personally, pray?
• Why is he going backward, at least in his style of dress? The huge pallium, the fur cap he wore on St. Nicholas Day, the huge mitres and jewel encrusted vestments all look like they came out of the Middle Ages. Wasn’t it Paul IV that said the money from all these rich trappings would be better spent on the poor? And while I’m talking about fashion, what’s with wearing the red shoes with the white robes? Last question. I heard that the Pope asked for chocolate fudge cake for his birthday. What kind of ice cream did he want served with that? ;p
• Why didn’t you bring your cat to the Vatican?
• What is his favorite hobby, and why?
• I would ask about his prayer life, I think.
• I would thank him for thinking about the environment.
• When you get to heaven, what is the first thing you will say to God?
• I would love to know how often he has doubted his faith.
• How do you play soccer in that uniform?

Here are some initial results from my unscientific survey about The Pope’s Visit. Next post I’ll get into some of the more reflective responses about what folks hope for from this visit.

1. Are you following the Pope’s visit to the US? (59 responses)

• Yes …………………… 86.4%
• No ……………………..13.6%

2. Where do you go for Pope news coverage? (58 responses)

• television …………. 55.2%
• media websites …. 43.1%
• blogs …………………. 31%
• newspapers ………… 31%
• radio ……………….. 22.4%
• other …………………. 8.6%

3. Any specific source (from Q.2) that you’d recommend? (35 responses)

Television

• EWTN (11 recommendations)
• Fox News
• Morning news shows
• CNN b/c Jim Martin is the commentator

Websites

• http://uspapalvisit.com/
• http://phatmass.com
• http://www.nytimes.com/
• http://www.zenit.org/
• http://www.Beliefnet.com
• http://news.google.com

Blogs

• Whispers in the Loggia (2 recommendations)
• What The Prayer Really Says
• Overheard in the Sacristy
• Benedict in America

Radio

• NPR (4)
• EWTN (2)

Other

• my mom
• catch it on the fly – no time for anything else