of papal hats and snappy jesuits

"...you mean that's the pope's hat?"
"shelley, it's a zucchetto. in fact, it was pope pius XII's zucchetto."
"it's pope pius XII's hat! sweet! where's my camera?"

yup, the pope's hat was at my parents' house last sunday night.

pope pius XII, if you aren't aware, was the pope who took on hitler in the second world war, saving hundreds of thousands of jews throughout vatican city and castel gandolfo (his summer home). down the line, when pius is canonized, it will be a second class relic. how sweet is that?


it was a gathering of fabulously wonderful people (who would all argue with me for saying so) who support the culture of life.

i found something i loved in each one of the families that was there that night...whether a love of itty bitty dogs, the fervent belief that catholic high schools should actually be catholic, small world coincidences with in a world that gets smaller each day, revisiting the old school days of when noreen and i took on the world at st. charles, and learning that fr. raftis is a pretty good photographer. we talked canons, medium format cameras, photoshop and he snapped the beautiful sunset image below. he was allowed to touch zoomy the zoomlens. :)

{and this is how well my friends know me...as father and i were out on the deck with the camera, amy sends me a text message, "you should get a picture of the sunset right now! it's amazing!"}

good stuff that night...with good peeps. i loved it.