You would not expect to see a 62-year-old Capuchin monk with a brown robe, sandals, and a long white beard at a heavy metal concert. But that's what you might see on stage in Italy. Friar Cesare Bonizzi is no ordinary heavy metal rocker performed at his third "Gods of metal" festival last month with his band Fratello Metallo (Metal Brother), Reuters reports.

While the final gruesome collapse of what had been the seemingly endless "Doha Round" of WTO trade talks produced rent garments and teeth-gnashing among the free trade gang trying to direct global commerce, in other quarters, Doha's demise was not exactly cause for as much despair.

With Anglicanism nearing schism at its once-every-ten-year Lambeth conference, Zenit is reporting that the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) is seeking full communion with Rome.

The 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae is getting some press in Catholic circles, the most prominent of which is John Allen's New York Times column on the subject. Allen argues that Humanae Vitae's survival is a sign of the unwillingness of the Catholic church--by which he means the Vatican, it seems--to change, a stubbornness that was underestimated by commentators at the time.

When's the last time you laughed at work? If you can't remember, your workplace might need to lighten up. According to "humor experts" (comedians?

John McCain's bad press run continued today. With Obama's European invasion provoking rock star crowds, McCain tried to schedule a photo op on a Louisiana oil rig only to have Hurricane Dolly intervene. At least that's his campaign's story. According to the Guardian , what really put a stop to the photo op was an oil spill in the Mississippi.

The Catholic diocesan university of San Diego has withdrawn an offer of a one-year appointment to eminent feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, according to InsideHigherEd.com. The USD the donor that funds the Monsignor John R.

The Church of England's decision this week to ordain women as bishops is already stirring talk of a mass exodus "across the Tiber" to communion with Rome.