CNA director to provide analysis of Pope’s visit for NY Times

Apr 12, 2008 / 10:01 am

The Director of Catholic News Agency, Mr. Alejandro Bermudez, will be contributing to a New York Times blog covering of the papal visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

Bermudez joins several other experts at the blog, titled “A Papal Discussion.”  The blog will provide analysis of events surrounding Pope Benedict’s visit to Washington, D.C. and New York City.

Laurie Goodstein, the national religion correspondent for the New York Times, said in an email that the blog’s focus will be on analysis of the papal events rather than reporting.  Contributors’ blog articles, she said, will analyze the events of the visit from an intellectual, theological, and cultural perspective.

According to Bermudez, basic translation of the Pope’s actions and statements would be one facet of his commentary.

“For many people, Pope Benedict speaks in ‘Ratzingerean,’” Bermudez said.  “In actuality, he just speaks in plain Catholic, but ‘plain Catholic’ has become hard to understand even for normal Church-goers. If you want my two cents about my analysis, you can expect me to try and provide an understandable explanation of the scope and vision behind the Pope's words.”

Bermudez, in addition to directing Catholic News Agency, also heads the Association for Catholic Information (ACI) the umbrella organization for CNA, ACI Prensa, and ACI Digital news agencies. 

Bermudez is also a member of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, known in English as the Christian Life Movement.  The Sodalitium was founded in Lima, Peru in 1985, and in 1994 the Holy See recognized it as an International Association of Christian Faithful of Pontifical Right.

The New York Times blog “A Papal Discussion” is located at thepope.blogs.nytimes.com.