Associated Press: By selecting a Pennsylvania-born Catholic as his No. 2, Obama is betting the potential rewards — including swaying elusive lunch-pail Catholics in the Midwest — outweigh the risks.

The whole story is here.

The spector of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the great 17th-century Italian sculptor and painter, is evident all over Rome — on bridges, buildings, piazzas and in the city’s finest museums. Perhaps nowhere is his artistic genius more evident than in St. Pater’s Square, where he designed the arching collonade, which defines the world’s most glorious public space, and is topped with 144 saints carved in travertine (St. Gaetano Catanoso is not up there, but his sainted Calabrian predecessor, St. Francis of Paola, is!). All this emphasis on gathering huge crowds overlooked by a communion of saints is entirely fitting: that is the primary place where canonizations are held — and where saints are named.

I’ve seen many, many Bernini masterpieces during my visits to Rome, including the incomparable “Ecstacy of St. Teresa” in a tiny church near the Piazza Repubblica (shown above). I really wish I could visit the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where a traveling exhibit of Bernini’s gorgeous marble busts are making their only American appearance. The story is here.

An excerpt: “The cloth ripples. You would swear it does. Call this the ultimate form of illusionism: making marble look as soft as cloth or as delicate as lace. The hair, the skin and the lips on Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s portrait busts are just as logic-defying.”

We know so much about Pope John Paul II, one of the most internationally famous and beloved popes in Vatican history. But what about his predecessor, Pope John Paul I, the Italian with the sweet smile and brief papacy? John Thavis, the Vatican bureau chief of the Catholic News Service, writes about JPI here, just prior to the 30th anniversary of the pope’s election to the throne of St. Peter.

An excerpt: “It was one of the briefest pontificates, but it left a lasting impression. Many inside and outside the Vatican felt that a man of extraordinary humility and goodness had passed their way — like a meteor that light up the sky and then disappears quickly, as one cardinal put it.”

Padre Gaetano Catanoso (1879-1963) experienced a relatively quick route to sainthood — about 25 years from the start of his cause to the canonization by Pope Benedict XVI in October 2005. This blog post regarding Father Nelson H. Baker (1842-1936) of Buffalo, N.Y., is a reminder of how long and difficult the path can be for many who are already deemed saints by their ardent followers.

An excerpt: “One of the most frustrating things about the process of establishing that someone is a saint, that someone is with God and can act as an intermediary between God and those still living, is proving miracles. In Father Baker’s case, over 20 healings have been investigated so far for his cause, and none of them have passed muster in Rome.

News report: “Benedict XVI says that the pontificate of Pope John Paul II can be divided into two equally important parts: the years when he took the Gospel to the world and the years of his ‘passion.’ ”

An interesting story, here, in which Pope Benedict reflects on the final years of his predecessor’s life.

Yesterday, during the program “This is the Day” on Catholic TV, a cable network, I was interviewed live by hosts Father Reed and Jay Fadden by telephone. The show will be rebroadcast several times this week. An archived link to the show is here. Click then on the program labled August 12. Our discussion is a few minutes into the program and lasts about 6 minutes.

According to the blog CUSA: “Today is the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi…She was the first saint canonized using the new process of canonization. Before her, the saints were proclaimed by agreement of the people and their bishops. Hers was the first process that called witnesses and took testimony as to the content of her life and vocation.” More here.

Frank Wilson, the former book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s book review section, reviews My Cousin the Saint today in the Sunday paper. The review is here. I think he liked the book, and was really taken by Padre Gaetano Catanoso, the man who became a saint.

Excerpt: “The real miracle on display in this book is the life of Gaetano Catanoso. Here was a man unaffected by theological subtleties, spouting no mystical mumbo-jumbo, content to pray, celebrate Mass, and be unwaveringly good and kind. In short, a good priest … the soul of the book is Padre Gaetano. We all need to become better acquainted with him.”

The National Catholic Register carries a column this week by Father Walter Schu that encompasses the history surrounding Pope Paul VI’s stand on contraception 40 years ago, which was defended vigorously by Pope John Paul II in 1979 in his speeches on “the theology of the body.” The well-written essay is here.

This church policy, however passionately argued by celebate popes and priests, remains irrelevant to four out of five Catholics (probably more, actually) and a befuddlement to most non-Catholics. In developed countries, the policy appears as an intrusion into the private decisions reserved for couples; in poor countries, where soaring birth rates and poverty rise together, it appears cruel and blind to reality.

There is a chapter in my book called “Believe What You Can,” and it underscores a common-sense outlook for lapsed Catholics like myself who are interested in returning to church, but know there is much about Catholic teachings that we can never embrace or support. I came across two fine essays by thoughtful Catholics that give voice to a couple of issues that tend to keep many Catholics comfortably on the sidelines: the ban on contraception and voting issues.

Excerpt No. 1: “Catholics the world over support the use of contraception, and those who can access it use it. It would enable hundreds of thousands if not millions more families to make informed decisions about their futures if the church lifted this ban - not to mention the impact it would have on HIV prevention.”

Excerpt No. 2: “In 2008, the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good have put out a very different voter guide. They list 10 key issues: Dignity of work, economy, environment, education, foreign policy, health care, immigration, Iraq war, life, and poverty. For each issue, they highlight some key positions held by both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama. There is no negative condemnation of either candidate.”