The POPE is Coming to Brindisi, Italy

(How the Heck This Small Port Town Rates a Visit from the Pope is Beyond Me)

The Pope is coming to Brindisi June 14 & 15! That probably means little to nothing to YOU the reader because you don't live in Italy -- let alone Brindisi. But the POPE - by the way that would be Pope Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Ratzinger, aka the Big Manor the

Man standing NEXT to the Big MAN) coming to Brindisi would be like President Bush announcing he is going to visit Barnard, Vermont. Or like the Rolling Stones announcing they are going to put on a show in Juneau, Alaska. In other words, it makes no sense. But you better believe I'm gonna be standing in line to listen to what the Pope has to say.

Speaking of Brindisi, let me go on record as saying I like Brindisi. I really do. If you'd have asked me 20 years ago if I like this town I'd have probably rolled my eyes and asked when the next train heading north was leaving. But now that I have a young daughter and a cat, I kind of like the fact that she (my daughter not my cat) can go downtown and walk with her friends and I don't have to worry about her being kidnapped or worse. The same things that bored me two decades ago I really enjoy now. No disgruntled postal workers, no pissed off students barricaded in a high school because they didn't get a prom date. You get the idea.

So the Pope is coming to town. My question is why? Pope Benedict can have the pick of the litter when it comes to visits. In fact, according to the Catholic Times, Brindisi is just one of several stops the Pope will make in 2008. Among other standout locations, the Pope will travel to Washington DC April 16 and celebrate his 81^st birthday, on that day he's scheduled to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House and with U.S. bishops at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. (Wasn't the Immaculate Conception something Franco Harris did in the Super Bowl a few years ago?)

By the way, according to the Vatican -- that's where the Pope hangs out -- the April 15-20 trip to the United States and the United Nations will be the pope's first journey outside Italy in 2008.