JULY 8, 2007

To the Churches of St. John of God, Sto-Ken-Splen-Rox and St. Catherine of Siena, Crescent: from the Eternal City of Rome and your Pastor, Fr. Lou Vallone: Greetings in the Name of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Yes, my dear parishioners, this epistle is being written as I sit on the Janiculum Hill overlooking the Vatican and St. Peter Basilica in Rome, Italy. As you read this on Sunday, I will still be here in Rome.

First, lest there be unfounded rumors: No, I am not in Rome to prepare to be named the co-adjutor archbishop of Baltimore, nor the new bishop of Pittsburgh. I am not here to receive the archbishop's pallium. I am not here at the invitation of the Pope to help him celebrate his anniversary of ordination to priesthood. I have not been summoned by the Congregation of the Faith to answer charges of heresy, nor to be a witness the cause of declaring someone to be canonized a saint. Nor is my advice being sought in a particularly complicated interpretation of Canon Law, and I am not interviewing for a job with one of the Congregations. I have not come to consult on maintaining the homepage of the Vatican on the World Wide Web, nor am I computerizing the Sacred Rota. I am not giving a lecture to the seminarians, nor a retreat to the nuns who cook for the Cardinals. Nor am I a part of an advanced team of security specialists for the next conclave to elect a Pope. In short, my business in Rome is my annual mundane exercise of teaching secular law school students from Duquesne and other universities an introduction to Canon Law.

I wonder how St. Paul's Epistles would have been if he had the technology available to me right now. I am composing this on my laptop computer, and will e-mail it so that within minutes it will appear in our parish's homepage mailbox, where it will be reformatted and published by our parish secretaries (Jan and Helene respectively) to appear in this bulletin. (That is, if they do it right. If they did, you are reading this. If they messed up, who would know?)

Actually, this is probably my elebenty-seventh (to quote Dennis the Menace) visit to Rome in my life. Rome is called the "Eternal City", but it is a living metropolis so people and things have changes, and I constantly have to reacquaint myself with some contacts and places. The food, however, is pretty much the same, which means I will be about 10 pounds heavier when I return.

Speaking of my return, that is another matter. I plan to be back well before the end of the month. As always in our day and age, flying can be an iffy proposition. St. Paul may have been shipwrecked and imprisoned and flogged several times in his apostolic wanderings, but that's nothing in comparison to trying to get a seat on a full airplane in Italy which declares various and sundry strikes on an average of every 13 hours!

In any case, I will offer a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica this week for the intention of the parishioners of St. John of God and St. Catherine, and will give the Pope a glowing report of what wonderous worshipping communities they are if he is lucky enough to get a chance to meet with me before I leave, whenever that happens to be.

May God's peace be with one and all. Ciao.