Radwanska dropped by Catholic youth over nude spread

WARSAW — World number four Agnieszka Radwanska has been dropped by a Catholic youth movement in her native Poland for posing nude in the “Body Issue” of ESPN Magazine.

Radwanska, 24, who makes no secret of her strong Catholic faith, is photographed in profile without a stitch, sitting in a lawn chair by a pool filled with tennis balls.

While not explicit, the nude has proven too much for a Catholic group known as Krucjata Mlodych (Youth Crusade), which runs a campaign dubbed “I’m not ashamed of Jesus.”

The young Catholics, who claim more than a million followers, dropped Radwanska last week for what they said was “immoral behavior” in the ESPN spread, which can be seen at espn.go.com/espn/bodyissue.

This year’s beaten Wimbledon semi-finalist previously appeared in a television commercial sponsored by the group in which she spelled out the word “Jesus” with tennis balls and urged young Poles not to be ashamed of their faith.

Other athletes in the buff in the special issue include Puerto Rican motocross champ Tarah Gieger and nine-time major golf champion Gary Player, the oldest model at 77.

Home to the former pope, John Paul II, Poland remains one of Europe’s most devout nations.

More than 90 percent of the population declares itself Roman Catholic.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Italian journalist says new pope called her first

ROME—Just hours after his dramatic election as leader of the Catholic world, an Italian journalist in Rome said the first thing Pope Francis did was to call her up for a friendly chat.

“The phone rang… My son picked it up and it was the pope,” Stefania Falasca, a former editor for a Catholic monthly, told Italian media.

“At home we just called him ‘father’, we never called him ‘eminence.’ I didn’t know what to say. I asked him ‘Father, what am I meant to call you? Holy Father?’” she said.

“He laughed and he told me ‘The first phone call I wanted to make was to say hello to you, Gianni and the kids,’” she said.

Falasca is married to Gianni Valente, who is also a journalist, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.

Francis, formerly archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has already made his mark in Rome with his informal style.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Black smoke over Vatican: No new pope yet

VATICAN CITY— Black smoke is billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, meaning Roman Catholic cardinals have not elected a pope in their second or third rounds of balloting.

Cardinals voted twice Wednesday in Michelangelo’s famed frescoed chapel after a first vote Tuesday in a conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign.

The conclave was called after Pope Benedict XVI resigned last month, throwing the church into turmoil and exposing deep divisions among cardinals tasked with finding a manager to clean up a corrupt Vatican bureaucracy as well as a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net