April 14th

Today is Good Friday, one of the most solemn days on the Christian calendar. This is the day that Christ died. My memories of this day, growing up as a Catholic altar boy, are of the usually gaudy church being stripped bare, and of pilgrims marching through the streets of Jersey City reenacting the final gruesome hours of Jesus Christ. (This was long before Mel Gibson's film version.) On this holiest of days, which reminds me of my Catholic roots, I'm going to write to the man who is the current leader of the Catholic Church, and the man who took over from Pope John Paul II, one of the most cahrismatic figures to ever walk the Earth, after his death last year.

Pope Benedict XVI