Last night, we hosted a special guest at our home - Thiago Catanoso, a 29-year-old computer expert for an America-based software company who lives in Sao Paolo, Brazil. In that South American country, there are scores of Catanosos who, like the Catanosos in America, trace their roots back a few generations to Calabria in the toe of the boot of Italy.

Thiago’s great-great grandparents emigrated from Chorio in 1903, a year before my grandfather left the same tiny Calabrian village (also the birthplace of the future saint to whom we all share a common bloodline). One of his Brazilian uncles, Jose Carlos Catanoso, returned to Reggio di Calabria several years ago to meet his Italian relatives for the first time, and learn also about Padre Gaetano. Jose Carlos and his wife, Maria, returned, as we did, to attend the canonization in St. Peter’s Square in October 2005.

Last evening, we had a wonderful visit with Thiago, who was at the end of a business trip for his employer that took him first to Miami (we “met” online earlier this year when he contacted me by email). We shared family stories and family photos and spoke about our lives in America and Brazil. His father and wife called during the visit to say hello from the southern hemisphere. To our knowledge, this is the first time that American and Brazilian branches of the Catanoso family have ever met.

The world feels like a smaller place today, but I know now that I have a bigger family.

Thoughtful commentary at the Jesuit-led America magazine blog. An excerpt:

“Barack Obama’s tour of Afghanistan and Iraq is already paying dividends politically. The pictures of enthusiastic troops cheering him on were worth a thousand words: He is no peacenik a la Jane Fonda. Ditto the photos of Obama in a helicopter with General David Petraeus. They may not agree about strategy but they appeared to be enjoying each others’ company. And, standing alongside Obama in virtually every photograph is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, giving a bipartisan glow to the trip.”

Read the whole story.

Fascinating reading at the blog In All Things, on the web site of the Jesuit magazine America, where author and former atheist-turned-Catholic Jennifer Fulwiler is taking live questions today, as she did yesterday. Jennifer’s thoughful blog, Et Tu?, can be found here.

On this day, let’s set aside talk of saints and focus on what can only be understood as a true miracle — this imperfect yet still-thriving experiment in representative democracy we call America. Thomas Jefferson, at the tender age of 32, writing alone in Philadelphia (before he received some editing help from several founding brothers), penned a document of such high ideals and startling clarity and vision that it help launch a nation, inspire a revolution (first among many) and then echo through the ages. His words are as stirring today as they were in 1776.

Take a moment today and read the Declaration of Independence.

With the possible exception of St. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio likely ranks as Italy’s most popular saint. He’s surely popular in America, too, as this blog post details. He’s even popular in Reggio Calabria, home of my cousin the saint, Padre Gaetano Catanoso.

There is a lot of lure and legend and mysticism connected with this southern Italian priest (1887-1968), who famously bore the stigmata much of his adult life. Some of his powers, quite frankly, are beyond belief. The Vatican was highly skeptical of him in the 1920s, when his fame first rose (as I discuss in my book). But Pope John Paul II believed in Pio intrinsically, and revered him in life and death.

According to a web site about him: “As Padre Pio’s fame grew, his ministry began to take the center-stage at the friary. Many pilgrims flocked to see him [including Padre Gaetano in 1922, as I write in my book] and he spent around nineteen hours each day saying Mass, hearing confessions and corresponding, often sleeping not even two hours per day. His fame had the negative side effect that accusations against him made their way to the Holy Office in Rome (since 1983, known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, causing many restrictions to be placed on him. His accusers included high-ranking archbishops, bishops, theologians and physicians.”