The Gospel According to Rocco

The 23-year-old blogger behind the Vatican's version of Wonkette has now been profiled. And about time too. Money quote from Rocco, reminiscing about an encounter with a cardinal at the age of eight:

[Cardinal Bevilacqua] asked me, 'Well, do you want to be a priest?' And I had never thought of it. I thought about it for a long time and decided it wasn't what I wanted. But he told me a lot of the ways things work because I was so curious. So there was an intellectual thing. But that led to faith, to trust, to love, to the living encounter with Christ, which is the core of the work, but I don't talk about that all the time. So much of what I do stems from that, to share that with people and give them a sense of what I learned. To pull them in intellectually and with the sensual. The beautiful thing about Catholicism is that it is a faith of the senses. It isn't puritanical or at least it shouldn't be. It is in a lot of quarters today, but it's a faith that rejoices in every part of reality. It's just the greatest allure in the world and when it calls you, it's very tough to not take that.

What a beautiful expression of Catholicism at its best. Rocco's blog, Whispers In The Loggia, is a real gem. I've linked to it before. And he needs financial support. So go there and donate. He's got student loans to pay off. And he's doing amazing work.