CousinFest '09 date confirmed

I am so terribly excited! CousinFest '09 will be taking place over the Fourth of July weekend, July 2-5. One of the reasons for my great excitement is that the fireworks we'll be watching are the ones displayed from the suhh-waaaanky clubhouse in Susie's neighborhood; my family is accustomed to going to the local Payless parking lot where fireworks are set off while our fellow citizens sit in battered lawn chairs in the backs of their pickup trucks, eating Doritos, talking NASCAR and yelling at their kids, who are trying to stab each other with sparklers: "Travis, I'm gonna haul off and belt you one if you don't stop that sh*t right now! You're fixin' to put out your sister's eye with that thang!"

I'm thinking in Susie's neighborhood, there is probably a separate fireworks display for the kids and the nannies, so that the adults can be free to sip their wine and murmur "Oooohhh! Aaaahhh!!!" in their cultured Southern accents. Susie will be the one standing up and hollering, "Oh, look, did y'all see that one? It was PINK!"

I wonder if Carol will refuse to raise her hand as a visitor at Holy Spirit for the third year in a row. Yes, I have been keeping track. And yes, I am holding a grudge. Two years in a row, she's left me hanging to stand up and say my name and where I'm from while she slumps there in the pew, snickering wickedly at me and refusing to make her presence known.

We don't know yet if Lilly can come: she is very busy with work and with working on yet another college degree; you'd have thought she'd be content with that MBA, but no....She has to go on proving that she's smarter than the other three of us put together, but we do not hold that against her. She, in the same manner, is gracious and forgiving of the fact that, compared to her, Susie, Carol and I don't have the brains God gave a goose.

Easter Basket blessings!

Today was the Blessing of the Easter Baskets at church, the third year in a row we've had this really lovely tradition. It is Slavic in origin, and since Father is of Polish descent, he brought this tradition to the congregation, which is largely composed of Catholics of Irish, German and Italian descent. I wrote about it last year, too; this year, we weren't surprised to see many of the same people we saw then, lugging their heavy baskets up the long walk to the church's front door, into the narthex, into the church itself, and down the long aisle.

Being that it is Holy Saturday, the Blessed Sacrament was not present in the tabernacle. It feels very strange in there without Him. The emptiness seems immeasurable, kind of like when you move from one house to another: The old house still has some of your belongings in it -- a couch, some chairs, the refrigerator and stove -- but it still seems as if the heart of the home has moved on somewhere else.

Considering how strange it feels to be without the Presence of Jesus in the church, imagine how it must have felt to the disciples all those many years ago as they were hiding, their faith at its lowest ebb, wondering if any minute they were going to be arrested.

Anyway, here's what our Easter basket contained this year:

Wine -- Red wine symbolizes the blood of Christ, spilled to cover our sins

Bread -- Last year we bought hot cross buns from Panera for our basket which were delicious but expensive, and the year before that, I made a traditional egg-and-dried fruit bread that no one would eat. So this year, I employed the trusty bread machine (on the dough setting) to make a nice, rich bread put together with eggs and milk to make it richer. I didn't braid it or shape it like a cross or anything; my talents don't go in that direction. I just put it in a regular bread pan and baked it that way. The bread reminds us that Christ is our True Bread.

Salt -- Salt is a condiment, much prized throughout the world when Christians first started assembling Easter baskets, and it reminds us of our duty to flavor the world and make it better by our presence.

Eggs -- The Eastern Europeans traditionally gave up dairy products and meat for the duration of Lent, so eggs were abundant at Easter when the long fast was over. The girls colored a dozen eggs this morning, and it was the first time that they sat swirling the eggs around in the Pass dyes while listening to rock music -- what a juxtaposition! The rocker was David Cook, that handsome sweetheart from American Idol last year, and I kind of secretly like him, too, so it was all good. Eggs have been used for centuries to help people understand the concept of the Holy Trinity because they are three -- shell, white, yolk -- contained in one.

Cheese -- We bought some cream cheese which I unmolded from the container and then pressed dried cranberries into in the shape of a cross. It looked very nice. The purpose of the cheese is to provide a food that is bland yet sweet, and is intended to remind Christians that we are to be moderate in all things, but that is hard when you haven't eaten candy for soooo looooong. We will be moderate on Monday, perhaps.

Butter -- Since the Slavic people gave up all dairy products for Lent, butter also figured largely in their Easter celebrations. It was included because of its richness, which makes sense. Why do you think those vendors at the Indiana State Fair dip their roasted ears of corn in to melted butter before they hand them over to you? Butter makes everything better, and I didn't need the Indiana Dairy Council or even the Roman Catholic Church to tell me that.

Candle - The candle symbolizes Jesus as the Light of the world. This year, we bought a short, white pillar candle and placed it on my pretty pressed glass candle plate beside the basket.

Bacon -- Traditionally, of course, the meat in an Easter basket is ham, but kielbasa and bacon can also be used. Frankly, we couldn't afford a ham this year. The pork symbolizes our freedom from the Law of Moses, which forbids the eating of pork. Jesus didn't come to abolish the Law; He came to fulfill it, and it that fulfillment, as St. Peter's dream teaches us in Acts 10:11-17, we are no longer bound by those strictures. We are free to eat. And since we are free, we are going to come home from the Easter Vigil Mass this year and have bacon sandwiches on that good bread!

We really love this tradition and look forward to it every year as one of the highlights of Lent. It might just seem like a lot of trouble, putting all these things in a basket and lugging them to the church, but when you're sitting there looking at your pretty basket while Father says a series of really beautiful prayers over it, you truly realize how meaningful it is. It's also fun afterwards seeing what everyone else brought in their baskets.

Good Friday

Good Friday is finally here. As I type this a couple of hours before dawn, it is dark and rainy, which seems fitting, doesn't it?

Usually Good Friday is marked here by going to church: Stations of the Cross, the beginning of the Divine Mercy Novena, the reading of the Passion, communion service, the Veneration of the Cross...those are the things we usually do. But Aisling is down with a bad cold, and since she has to play the piano tomorrow at Easter Vigil, it seems prudent to keep her at home where she can rest and have zinc lozenges and orange juice.

Today, we can pray the Devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ and the Stations of the Cross right here at home, remembering Him in His sorrow on this day so paradoxically called "good."

In the words attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "We adore you, O Christ, and we praise You, because by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world."

Spring cleaning continues unabated

Yesterday, we spring cleaned the dining room and the downstairs bathroom, which doesn't sound all that bad until you consider that we had to unload and wash everything in the china cabinet, which isn't nearly as fun as it sounds, plus individually vaccuum a bunch of Longaberger baskets collected in that misty, far-off past life in which we had money, plus dust and straighten the books -- about eight million of them, feels like -- in three very large bookcases. Not to mention random baseboard cleaning, floor sweeping, furniture polishing, window washing and all that.

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in the shiny, sparkly living room with a cup of strong, hot tea, wishing to soothe my dust-parched throat, but without the strength to lift the mug to my lips. Meelyn came dragging into the room and slumped on the sofa, her eyes sunken and her hands trembling.

"I'm sure all this cleaning has cut years off my young life," she moaned accusingly. "I've never even seen half that junk in bottom of the china cabinet before. Why do we have it?"

"It isn't junk to me," I said with only a pale shadow of my usual vigor, eyes closed, refusing to raise my head from its resting place on the sofa back. "But what else am I to do with a commemorative plate from the Mt. Summit Christian Church? It's fake willow ware and that church always smelled like mildew, but Nanny and Poppy were married there, so I think of it as an important historical artifact. Someday I'll pass it onto you and you can keep it in your china cabinet."

"Fat chance," scoffed Meelyn. "I'll break it over my knee, more like."

I turned my head sideways and opened one eye to look at her. "No you won't. You'll think, 'This is fake willow ware and Mama said that church always smelled like mildew, but Nanny and Poppy were married there, so I feel sentimentally attached to it as an important historical artifact.'"

Aisling crept into the room, her small face pale and haunted. "My teeth feel gritty," she whispered. "My hair. My hands. Even my eyeballs." That was when I realized that the grey of her complexion wasn't due to actual illness; it was just a skim-coat of the dust we'd been taking off the tops of the bookcases and china cabinet.

Today we moved on to the kitchen, where we completely dismantled the interior of the refrigerator and found a couple of, ahh....science experiments...on the shelves. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. Taking out all those shelves and washing them made my will to live swirl down the sink drain with all the grunge I was scrubbing off with my sponge. Meelyn found some salad dressing with a sell-by date of 2007. I hung my head in shame.

Aisling was clearing out the cabinets where we store the canned and boxed food and the dishes. She tortured me by holding up a can of Eagle Brand condensed milk with an expiration date of 2001 on it. She also threw away a box of Thai noodles with peanut sauce and when I chided her for her wastefulness, complaining that we could have given it to the food pantry, she looked over the tops of her glasses and said coldly, "Mother. The date on that box was November 2006."

Heaven help us all.

On the up side, I found some butter I didn't know I had. Meelyn and Aisling and I had discussed moving our dishes to a different cabinet, and when Aisling got them transferred, we all agreed that they looked very nice indeed, very orderly.

There is still a terrible mess in the kitchen -- food that needs to be put back in the fridge, some clutter on the table, dirty dishes to be stowed in the dishwasher -- but we're on the downside of the kitchen duties. We have to wipe down the stove and dishwasher and go over the fridge with one of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, which is possibly the very best cleaning item to ever be invented in the post-modern era, other than the complete line of Swiffer products, all of which I heartily endorse.

We also have to wash the window, stick the sweeper wand back behind the fridge, and finish up by re-organizing the appliance garage, which currently has to be held shut by a bin of dog food in order to prevent an avalanche of baking sheets, casserole dishes, cake pans, mixers, food choppers and the like.

And then alllllll we have to do is GO UPSTAIRS. *sob!*

Spring cleaning

I'm sitting here, panting and sweating, enjoying a fifteen-minute break from spring cleaning duties. Holy Week seemed like a good time to undertake the twice-yearly horrors of finding out what is really lurking underneath the couch and in the back of the under-sink cabinet in the kitchen. (I'll spare you the details.)

First of all, we've been in the process of shoring up our souls during this long season of Lent through the self-disciplinary measures of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Secondly, if deep housecleaning isn't a penitential act of self-discipline, I don't know what is. Third, Easter Sunday will hopefully dawn sunny, warm and bright and we won't have to look through winter-grimed windows as we eat our candy and say, "Eeeuuuwwww...."

Fourth of all, I hate it when my hair gets damp with perspiration and little strands stick to my forehead. I wish Pat were here because, although you'd never know it from his snarky attitude and elevated left eyebrow, but he is a wicked good house cleaner and not only works faster than I do, but also with a great deal more determination, being less likely to sneak off upstairs or outdoors to "get some furniture polish" or "shake out a rug" leaving everyone else to toil on.

Here's our living room/foyer cleaning list:

1) Wash ornaments, glass shelves and inside/outside glass of curio cabinet

2) Dust baseboards and window frames with lambswool duster; use sweeper's wand attachment to go around the floor line of the baseboards

3) Wash all inside window glass (outside is inclement today, thank heaven, I mean, darn it) and polish all glass in framed artwork and photographs

4) Run all throw rugs, curtains, afghans and sofa pillows through washer/dryer

5) Dust walls allllllll ten feet up with Swiffer dust mop (God bless the person who invented all that Swiffer stuff)

6) Move all furniture and vaccuum beneath; any furniture too big to move, attach long wand to sweeper hose and suck all dust and cobwebs from behind

7) Polish all wooden furniture; use brushie sweeper attachment to dust lamp shades

8) Feel sad over the fact that budget won't allow rental of upholstery cleaning machine, ditto carpet cleaning ditto

9) Clean the stairs, banister and balusters

10) Sternly quash feelings of bitter envy for people who have cleaners to come in and do all this crap for them while they go out for lunch -- thinking such thoughts is not Lent-like behavior

We've been at it for nearly three hours, and laws-a-mercy, I am ready to take to the bed. But everything looks very, very lovely. You'd have to see it. All we need to do is move the furniture back, sweep the rest of the floors, polish the wooden furniture and put the pillows back on the sofa and we're done.

Palm Sunday: The beginning of Holy Week

O sacred head, surrounded
by crown of piercing thorn!
O bleeding head, so wounded,
reviled and put to scorn!
Our sins have marred the glory
of thy most holy face,
yet angel hosts adore thee
and tremble as they gaze

I see thy strength and vigor
all fading in the strife,
and death with cruel rigor,
bereaving thee of life;
O agony and dying!
O love to sinners free!
Jesus, all grace supplying,
O turn thy face on me.


In this thy bitter passion,
Good Shepherd, think of me
with thy most sweet compassion,
unworthy though I be:
beneath thy cross abiding
for ever would I rest,
in thy dear love confiding,
and with thy presence blest.




I can usually make it through the first two verses, but the third, I just can't sing it. It's too much. And I never, ever have a tissue and my husband thinks that handkerchiefs are unsanitary and simply can't see his way into carrying a pressed and folded square just in case I feel like crying, so there I stand in Mass with tears raining down my face, hoping that I won't go up for Communion looking like Alice Cooper.

I love Holy Week. There are different things going on every single day at the church, but we usually just go to Mass on Holy Thursday, to the Good Friday services starting at noon and ending at midnight, if one should care to stay so long (most of that, by the way, is group prayer, as well as private prayer, not to mention the beginning of the Divine Mercy Novena.)

Then there's the Easter Basket Blessing on Saturday afternoon, a quick trip home to color Easter eggs, a quiet early evening, and then off to church for the Easter Vigil at 8:30 p.m., which is indisputably the most beautiful, most meaningful and most cherished Mass of the entire liturgical year. That Mass is about two or three hours long, so by the time we tumble back into the car, we're a bit giddy, but in the mood for Easter celebrating. Which we do, of course, with food.

But this is just the beginning. We've been carrying some extra crosses all through Lent and now we're on the long haul as we share this week with Him, remembering the sorrow and anticipating the joy. It is a beautiful week.

Moral dilemma

The girls and I were at the grocery today, standing in line with our several food items and our great big economy pack of double-roll toilet paper, because? When it comes to family harmony, not to mention gracious living, I think I'd rather be without milk, butter, bread, eggs and beer (life's staples) than without toilet paper.

So there's this young mother standing in front of us with her baby in her cart, and I was thinking how cute the baby was, when the mother took this long, loud slurping drink out of some nasty disposable cup, crushed it just enough to dent it in, and stuffed it down the magazine rack right in front of -- if you can believe it, and if you're easily shocked, you'd better sit down -- Martha Stewart Living.

And this was at the nice grocery store, not the one across town where all the crystal meth manufacturers in our fair city send their friends to queue up at the pharmacy to buy decongestants. The nice grocery!

It is true that I walk around in a permanent state of curmudgeonly disgruntlement over litter. I try not to, I really do. But it is SO HARD to love other people with the love of Christ when they do the most shiftless, lazy, selfish things. I can't stand it. I really can't. I watched that television commercial when I was a little kid, the one with the Indian standing there by a riverbank looking at all the garbage cluttering up what had previously been a proud and pristine waterway with that single tear sliding slowly down his carved-from-granite cheekbone, and I TOOK IT TO HEART, PEOPLE!

Cigarette butts on the sidewalk make me nuts. A McDonald's bag thrown casually out the window of a moving car makes me want to commit a small act of violence against the perpetrator. Nothing permanent, you understand; just a solid smacking about the head while delivering a lecture on the selfishness of throwing YOUR dumb trash on EVERYONE ELSE'S nature. People who walk out of restaurants picking their teeth are already on my bad side, because picking one's teeth is an activity that should be confined to the privacy of one's bathroom, in the first place, and in the second place, the people who do that tend to drop those toothpicks that have been in their germy mouths on the ground.

I've been such a prissy nagapotomus to this credo that when a holy card depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe blew off our dashboard and out into the wide world during a windy rainstorm the other day, I thought I was going to have to take Meelyn and Aisling in for therapy. Never mind that it blew into the parking lot of the public library, which looks like a thousand kindergarteners go there to eat a picnic lunch every day without ever picking up their trash, inviting an Army battalion and a circus to join them: WE HAD LITTERED, and that's all there was to it.

Maybe I've been a touch dogmatic.

I stood there, allowing my eyes to burn a hole into that young woman's shoulder blades, but if her flesh began to scorch, she gave no sign. Then I looked at that cup with its two inches of watered down Coke in the bottom and its straw stained with some sort of pinkish lip balm -- gross -- crumpled up in front of Martha's pretty April issue and I just wanted to take it and pour the rest of it right over her head and say through my gritted teeth in a tone of barely contained menace, "There are FOUR DIFFERENT TRASH RECEPTACLES at the FRONT OF THIS STORE. FIND ONE and USE IT, you-...you-...LITTERBUG!"

I had to change lines. I pushed my cart with dogged determination to the other end of the check-out lane section with Meelyn and Aisling following behind me, peeping like baby ducks: "Who? What? Why? Where?"

"Oh, nothing," I sighed. "I just thought this one....seemed cleaner."

My husband says it's a good thing I no longer have to work with the public, which is so true. I find the public much easier to love when I don't have to be around them and their cigarette butts, toothpicks, empty drink cups and McDonald's bags thrown around like rice at a wedding. Yecchhhhhhhh....



Here's the 1970s commercial featuring that weeping Indian, brought to you courtesy of YouTube: Indian reacting to pollution

You would cry too, if it happened to you

Did you all see the news story out of central Florida on April 1? About the woman in the Walgreen's parking lot who got back to her car after she picked up her prescriptions (maybe for OxyContin?) and found out after she was inside the vehicle that the battery was dead? And that she was trapped inside her own car because nothing electrical would work?

This was not an April Fool's Day prank.

She called 911 from her cell phone and plaintively told the dispatcher in a well-modulated and ladylike voice, "Nothing electrical works. And it's getting very hot in here. And I'm not feeling well."

On the tape of the call, you can hear the dispatcher, who was understandably baffled, asking the prisoner if she was able to manually pull up on the door lock.

"Okay, I've got that going on," said the woman, amidst noises of fumbling around inside the vehicle, "and oh...okay. Uhhhmmmm, sorry..."

Can you imagine the moment when the woman's door opened, can you imagine what was going through her mind? Because the car battery's still dead, right? And she needs to call AAA, or maybe even AA or maybe just her friend Amy, to get down to that parking lot with some jumper cables before the 911 dispatcher, all seized up with mirth, starts telling officers in their squad cars to drive by the Walgreen's on John Young Parkway and look for the lady standing next to the SUV with the hood up.

I imagine that many of us are laughing, even as we cringe inside, knowing that we ourselves have perhaps been just inches -- centimeters!!! -- away from making such a spectacle of ourselves at some point. Or maybe we actually have done something like this and time has drawn a merciful veil over the incident.

Or maybe you can imagine doing something even more spectacularly bird-brained in this particular woman's situation, which is exactly where my imagination led me. I can so see myself, locked in the car, thinking, "It's getting hot in here! I don't feel well at all! I must think of a way to get out of here! Oh, crap! My cell phone battery is dead, too! Why do all the batteries in my life die and desert me in my time of need? Is this some kind of metaphor? Wait! I know what I can do! I remember that segment on the news that said you can KICK OUT THE WINDSHIELD in case of an emergency and you're trapped! Yes! That's what I'll do!"

Walgreen's shoppers going in or out of the store would have been greatly surprised and undoubtedly amused to see me emerging triumphant onto the hood of my minivan, rising from the chunks of broken windshield the way Venus emerged on that shell through the sea foam, only not as pretty, being plump and flushed and slightly hysterical. And sweaty. "I'M OKAY! DON'T WORRY! I GOT OUT!"

I can see it. I can so see it. And you know what? So can my husband, my father, my brother, possibly my sister-in-law and many of my friends. The only ones who would remain loyal, because we're all in the same dopey club together, are Meelyn, Aisling and my mother.

Ohhhh, it just doesn't bear thinking about. Poor lady.

RECIPE: Asian Roast Beef (in the slow-cooker)

This recipe came to me through one of those happy accidents where you're thinking miserably, "What, oh what, am I going to cook for dinner?" and ideas like baked chicken breast served with a sauce made of peanut butter, strawberry jello, ripe olives and pistachios starts racing through your head and you think no-no-I-don't-want-to-do-that-I-served-chicken-breast-on-Tuesday, so you decide to go ahead and make the sauce but instead cleverly serve it with pieces of sliced ham and American cheese rolled up together and skewered with a toothpick....This recipe came to me on the back of a packet of Superior Touch's Better Than Gravy beef gravy mix. I had the beef gravy mix because I was thinking of using it to make a sauce of beef gravy, mini-marshmallows and pimientos to disguise the leftover meatload from earlier in the week.

Superior Touch's recipe was very useful because it called for ingredients I had on hand. I thawed out a beef roast I got on a deep discount and cooked it all in the slow-cooker. It was absolutely succulent and delicious. If you would consider stir-frying some sliced carrots, broccoli florets, water chestnuts and onion quarters in a skillet or wok and then serving them with some steamed rice alongside the beef, I guarantee that you will have a meal that is easy and eminently do-able without a lot of fuss and your family will love it.

You can, of course, substitute your own minced garlic and your own sliced or grated fresh ginger, but I'm giving the fast instructions here.

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds beef pot roast
1 packet Superior Touch Better Than Gravy mix
1 cup hot water
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice or white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or a couple of dried pepper pods from the produce section)

DIRECTIONS

Spray the inside of a large slow-cooker with cooking spray; place the beef pot roast inside and turn the slow-cooker to the HIGH setting. In a small mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and stir with a small whisk until blended. Pour over meat in slow-cooker; cook for 5-6 hours. Remove from slow-cooker to a platter and allow to stand for about ten minutes before serving.

Serve with fresh stir-fried vegetables and steamed rice. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds if desired for some extra calcium. Delicious!!!

Can you think of anything better?

Five o'clock is the time in the afternoon when my energy and patience are at their lowest possible ebb, which is possibly why five o'clock in the afternoon is the time when I want to take the dogs and the girls and dump them gently down the coal chute.

Which is why five o'clock in the afternoon is the perfect time for a small piece of homemade whole wheat bread cut thick, generously buttered and topped with lemon curd, served alongside a cup of Earl Grey tea.

I can't think of anything better. Well, unless it would be a couple of shortbread cookies topped with a teeny dollop of the aforementioned lemon curd, but I gave cookies up for Lent.

I now think I can soldier through until bedtime without the coal chute figuring into the evening's activities.

A list of the popes

This excellent list of the popes of the Roman Catholic Church (with links for information for some of them) was taken from New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by Kevin Knight. Counting our current pope, Benedict XVI, there have been two hundred sixty-six pontiffs since Jesus established St. Peter (Simon bar Jonah; Cephas) as our first leader when He established the Church, two thousand years ago.

You might notice that Boniface I was the forty-second pope (A.D. 418-22) and that Boniface II was the fifty-fifth (A.D. 530-32). Or....you might not. It all depends on how cozy you are with both truth and historical fact. Not that anybody's keeping track of that kind of thing. Heh.


A List of the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church

See also POPE, PAPAL ELECTIONS, ELECTION OF THE POPE.

St. Peter (32-67)
St. Linus (67-76)
St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
St. Clement I (88-97)
St. Evaristus (97-105)
St. Alexander I (105-115)
St. Sixtus I (115-125) Also called Xystus I
St. Telesphorus (125-136)
St. Hyginus (136-140)
St. Pius I (140-155)
St. Anicetus (155-166)
St. Soter (166-175)
St. Eleutherius (175-189)
St. Victor I (189-199)
St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
St. Callistus I (217-22) Callistus and the following three popes were opposed by St. Hippolytus, antipope (217-236)
St. Urban I (222-30)
St. Pontain (230-35)
St. Anterus (235-36)
St. Fabian (236-50)
St. Cornelius (251-53) Opposed by Novatian, antipope (251)
St. Lucius I (253-54)
St. Stephen I (254-257)
St. Sixtus II (257-258)
St. Dionysius (260-268)
St. Felix I (269-274)
St. Eutychian (275-283)
St. Caius (283-296) Also called Gaius
St. Marcellinus (296-304)
St. Marcellus I (308-309)
St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
St. Miltiades (311-14)
St. Sylvester I (314-35)
St. Marcus (336)
St. Julius I (337-52)
Liberius (352-66) Opposed by Felix II, antipope (355-365)
St. Damasus I (366-83) Opposed by Ursicinus, antipope (366-367)
St. Siricius (384-99)
St. Anastasius I (399-401)
St. Innocent I (401-17)
St. Zosimus (417-18)
St. Boniface I (418-22) Opposed by Eulalius, antipope (418-419)
St. Celestine I (422-32)
St. Sixtus III (432-40)
St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
St. Hilarius (461-68)
St. Simplicius (468-83)
St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
St. Gelasius I (492-96)
Anastasius II (496-98)
St. Symmachus (498-514) Opposed by Laurentius, antipope (498-501)
St. Hormisdas (514-23)
St. John I (523-26)
St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
Boniface II (530-32) Opposed by Dioscorus, antipope (530)
John II (533-35)
St. Agapetus I (535-36) Also called Agapitus I
St. Silverius (536-37)
Vigilius (537-55)
Pelagius I (556-61)
John III (561-74)
Benedict I (575-79)
Pelagius II (579-90)
St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)
Sabinian (604-606)
Boniface III (607)
St. Boniface IV (608-15)
St. Deusdedit (Adeodatus I) (615-18)
Boniface V (619-25)
Honorius I (625-38)
Severinus (640)
John IV (640-42)
Theodore I (642-49)
St. Martin I (649-55)
St. Eugene I (655-57)
St. Vitalian (657-72)
Adeodatus (II) (672-76)
Donus (676-78)
St. Agatho (678-81)
St. Leo II (682-83)
St. Benedict II (684-85)
John V (685-86)
Conon (686-87)
St. Sergius I (687-701) Opposed by Theodore and Paschal, antipopes (687)
John VI (701-05)
John VII (705-07)
Sisinnius (708)
Constantine (708-15)
St. Gregory II (715-31)
St. Gregory III (731-41)
St. Zachary (741-52)
Stephen II (752) Because he died before being consecrated, many authoritative lists omit him
Stephen III (752-57)
St. Paul I (757-67)
Stephen IV (767-72) Opposed by Constantine II (767) and Philip (768), antipopes (767)
Adrian I (772-95)
St. Leo III (795-816)
Stephen V (816-17)
St. Paschal I (817-24)
Eugene II (824-27)
Valentine (827)
Gregory IV (827-44)
Sergius II (844-47) Opposed by John, antipope (855)
St. Leo IV (847-55)
Benedict III (855-58) Opposed by Anastasius, antipope (855)
St. Nicholas I (the Great) (858-67)
Adrian II (867-72)
John VIII (872-82)
Marinus I (882-84)
St. Adrian III (884-85)
Stephen VI (885-91)
Formosus (891-96)
Boniface VI (896)
Stephen VII (896-97)
Romanus (897)
Theodore II (897)
John IX (898-900)
Benedict IV (900-03)
Leo V (903) Opposed by Christopher, antipope (903-904)
Sergius III (904-11)
Anastasius III (911-13)
Lando (913-14)
John X (914-28)
Leo VI (928)
Stephen VIII (929-31)
John XI (931-35)
Leo VII (936-39)
Stephen IX (939-42)
Marinus II (942-46)
Agapetus II (946-55)
John XII (955-63)
Leo VIII (963-64)
Benedict V (964)
John XIII (965-72)
Benedict VI (973-74)
Benedict VII (974-83) Benedict and John XIV were opposed by Boniface VII, antipope (974; 984-985)
John XIV (983-84)
John XV (985-96)
Gregory V (996-99) Opposed by John XVI, antipope (997-998)
Sylvester II (999-1003)
John XVII (1003)
John XVIII (1003-09)
Sergius IV (1009-12)
Benedict VIII (1012-24) Opposed by Gregory, antipope (1012)
John XIX (1024-32)
Benedict IX (1032-45) He appears on this list three separate times, because he was twice deposed and restored
Sylvester III (1045) Considered by some to be an antipope
Benedict IX (1045)
Gregory VI (1045-46)
Clement II (1046-47)
Benedict IX (1047-48)
Damasus II (1048)
St. Leo IX (1049-54)
Victor II (1055-57)
Stephen X (1057-58)
Nicholas II (1058-61) Opposed by Benedict X, antipope (1058)
Alexander II (1061-73) Opposed by Honorius II, antipope (1061-1072)
St. Gregory VII (1073-85) Gregory and the following three popes were opposed by Guibert ("Clement III"), antipope (1080-1100)
Blessed Victor III (1086-87)
Blessed Urban II (1088-99)
Paschal II (1099-1118) Opposed by Theodoric (1100), Aleric (1102) and Maginulf ("Sylvester IV", 1105-1111), antipopes (1100)
Gelasius II (1118-19) Opposed by Burdin ("Gregory VIII"), antipope (1118)
Callistus II (1119-24)
Honorius II (1124-30) Opposed by Celestine II, antipope (1124)
Innocent II (1130-43) Opposed by Anacletus II (1130-1138) and Gregory Conti ("Victor IV") (1138), antipopes (1138)
Celestine II (1143-44)
Lucius II (1144-45)
Blessed Eugene III (1145-53)
Anastasius IV (1153-54)
Adrian IV (1154-59)
Alexander III (1159-81) Opposed by Octavius ("Victor IV") (1159-1164), Pascal III (1165-1168), Callistus III (1168-1177) and Innocent III (1178-1180), antipopes
Lucius III (1181-85)
Urban III (1185-87)
Gregory VIII (1187)
Clement III (1187-91)
Celestine III (1191-98)
Innocent III (1198-1216)
Honorius III (1216-27)
Gregory IX (1227-41)
Celestine IV (1241)
Innocent IV (1243-54)
Alexander IV (1254-61)
Urban IV (1261-64)
Clement IV (1265-68)
Blessed Gregory X (1271-76)
Blessed Innocent V (1276)
Adrian V (1276)
John XXI (1276-77)
Nicholas III (1277-80)
Martin IV (1281-85)
Honorius IV (1285-87)
Nicholas IV (1288-92)
St. Celestine V (1294)
Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
Blessed Benedict XI (1303-04)
Clement V (1305-14)
John XXII (1316-34) Opposed by Nicholas V, antipope (1328-1330)
Benedict XII (1334-42)
Clement VI (1342-52)
Innocent VI (1352-62)
Blessed Urban V (1362-70)
Gregory XI (1370-78)
Urban VI (1378-89) Opposed by Robert of Geneva ("Clement VII"), antipope (1378-1394)
Boniface IX (1389-1404) Opposed by Robert of Geneva ("Clement VII") (1378-1394), Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417) and Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), antipopes
Innocent VII (1404-06) Opposed by Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417) and Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), antipopes
Gregory XII (1406-15) Opposed by Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417), Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), and Pietro Philarghi ("Alexander V") (1409-1410), antipopes
Martin V (1417-31)
Eugene IV (1431-47) Opposed by Amadeus of Savoy ("Felix V"), antipope (1439-1449)
Nicholas V (1447-55)
Callistus III (1455-58)
Pius II (1458-64)
Paul II (1464-71)
Sixtus IV (1471-84)
Innocent VIII (1484-92)
Alexander VI (1492-1503)
Pius III (1503)
Julius II (1503-13)
Leo X (1513-21)
Adrian VI (1522-23)
Clement VII (1523-34)
Paul III (1534-49)
Julius III (1550-55)
Marcellus II (1555)
Paul IV (1555-59)
Pius IV (1559-65)
St. Pius V (1566-72)
Gregory XIII (1572-85)
Sixtus V (1585-90)
Urban VII (1590)
Gregory XIV (1590-91)
Innocent IX (1591)
Clement VIII (1592-1605)
Leo XI (1605)
Paul V (1605-21)
Gregory XV (1621-23)
Urban VIII (1623-44)
Innocent X (1644-55)
Alexander VII (1655-67)
Clement IX (1667-69)
Clement X (1670-76)
Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89)
Alexander VIII (1689-91)
Innocent XII (1691-1700)
Clement XI (1700-21)
Innocent XIII (1721-24)
Benedict XIII (1724-30)
Clement XII (1730-40)
Benedict XIV (1740-58)
Clement XIII (1758-69)
Clement XIV (1769-74)
Pius VI (1775-99)
Pius VII (1800-23)
Leo XII (1823-29)
Pius VIII (1829-30)
Gregory XVI (1831-46)
Blessed Pius IX (1846-78)
Leo XIII (1878-1903)
St. Pius X (1903-14)
Benedict XV (1914-22)
Biographies of Benedict XV and his successors will be added at a later date
Pius XI (1922-39)
Pius XII (1939-58)
Blessed John XXIII (1958-63)
Paul VI (1963-78)
John Paul I (1978)
John Paul II (1978-2005)
Benedict XVI (2005—)

About this page

APA citation. The List of Popes. (1911). In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Retrieved April 1, 2009 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
MLA citation. "The List of Popes." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
1 Apr. 2009 .
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

No foolin'

We moved into our house four years ago today, and a happy four years it has been.

Four years ago, I went to bed in this house for the first time and I already knew I loved it -- I just wasn't sure if it would love me back. I had, after all, spoken disparagingly about its basement. And I looked askance at the practicality of having big, huge rooms with a meagre one or two electrical outlets each, but those things paled in comparison to the fact that the house was full of light with its big windows and tall ceilings and that it had a subtle air of quiet happiness about it, contentment and well-being. We could hear church bells ringing the hours when the windows were open, and children playing outdoors. It felt so full of peace. That was something we all really needed at the time, having just gone through the screaming, churning hell of bankruptcy and foreclosure; we needed a place to rest and regroup and sort ourselves out.

This house has been a wonderful place to do the sorting. This has been, so far, the best place I've ever lived.