So Pope Benedict XVI has an iPod. The only controversy to me is that Vatican Rado bought the white Nano model -- which will go well with those white-and-gold vestments -- rather than the black that would look so cool with clericals. But when is the pope a man in black?
As you would expect, Carol Glatz at the Catholic News Service bureau at the Vatican does know what many MSM journalists would not know, which is that the pianist pope has a serious Mozart habit. The Vatican Radio staffers who helped the pope go digital knew that, too.
The pope's new 2-gigabyte digital audio player already was loaded with a sampling of the radio's programming in English, Italian and German and musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. The stainless steel back was engraved with the words "To His Holiness, Benedict XVI" in Italian.
Once the pope, who is also a pianist, gets the hang of the device's trademark click wheel, he will be able to listen to a special 20-minute feature produced by the radio's English program that highlights Mozart's life and music to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his birth.
So, GetReligion readers, any other nominations for musical works to go on this particular iPod? What non-Vatican podcasts would you recommend, for starters? Have some fun with this, folks.
If stranded on a desert island, one of the CDs (those ancient round shiny things that replaced LPs) at the top of my list would be the Robert Shaw Festival Singers' recording of the glorious Vespers by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Then again, if the odd tidbit of news reported in the new National Catholic Reporter column by the omnipresent John L. "Word from Rome" Allen Jr. is true, the pontiff previously known as the "Patriarch of the West" might not be as open to listening to Eastern Orthodox concert music as many thought he would be.