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A humbling moment and a ceremony charged with meaning - Pages 10-13 In a ceremony with ancient origins, Benedict XVI bestows pallium on Archbishop Costelloe SDB
Sign of Unity
Pope Benedict XVI presents a pallium to Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB of Perth, during a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on June 29. The Pope gave 44 archbishops the woollen pallium as a sign of their communion with him and their pastoral responsibility as shepherds. PHOTO: GIANCARLO GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO, CNS
Young atheist’s conversion turns plenty of heads IF IT’S TRUE that the biggest argument against Christianity is not Jesus but Christians themselves, then high-profile US atheist blogger Leah Libresco still has her work cut out for her. Last week, she shocked everyone on every side of the debate about whether God exists by announcing that she would no longer write a regular atheist blog on the popular religion website known as Patheos (www.patheos.com). She announced her decision and the reasons for it under the heading, ‘This is my last post for the Patheos atheist portal.’ That was because, she said, she had entered a program known as the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults in the Archdiocese of Washington where she lives; in
other words, the US’ foremost atheist blogger had begun the process of becoming a Catholic. Her continuing blog has already been moved to the Patheos Catholic channel. An indication of how attentiongrabbing the news was came when US cable network giant CNN interviewed Ms Libresco at length on the reasons for her conversion; her story also made it to MSNBC and numerous other media outlets. Within days of her announcement, innumerable posts, comments, articles and expressions of happiness or disappointment at the news flooded the internet; it’s impossible to Google her name without landing at the beginning of pages and pages of entries discussing her decision.
A strong factor in the attention has been that in recent years Ms Libresco had carved out a reputation as a leading atheist writer on the Internet and one of the ablest opponents of belief in God. Her intellectual honesty and formidable intellect – in 2011, she graduated as a double major in mathematics and political science from one of America’s premier ivyleague universities, Yale - had won widespread respect from both fellow atheists and Christians. In her attention-grabbing post, Ms Libresco said her reasons for finally deciding to choose Catholicism included her realisation “that there were parts of Christianity and Catholicism that seemed like a pretty good match for Please turn to Page 9
Leah Libresco: the intellectually gifted US atheist blogger has surprised her audience by announcing she is becoming a Catholic. PHOTO: PUBLIC SOURCES