Preparing for the Papal Visit (Roundup)

• Xaverian Catholic High School Band Gears Up To Play For Pope At JFK New York 1. April 3, 2008:

  It was the Brooklyn Archdiocese that selected Xaverian to participate in the papal festivities. The all-boy Catholic high school has an extensive music program with more than a quarter of its student body involved with either musical instruments or vocals. To perform for the pope, however, only 46 were chosen. The director says he had to pick the most talented and dedicated, including saxophone player Anthony Rodriguez.

  "My family is excited,” says Rodriguez. “They would never expect something like this like when I started playing in sixth grade they were like you're never going to reach that level. Nobody would expect something this big of a little thing like playing a sax."

• GEP Washington, the DC area’s top Destination Management Company, has been selected as the logistics management team for Pope Benedict XVI’s public Mass at Nationals Park in Washington, DC:

  In addition to logistics management, GEP Washington will also provide transportation for the Papal entourage; develop and operate a shuttle system to and from the ballpark for attendees; assist with design and décor; custom development of give-aways; coordinate staffing; and various other elements for the Mass.

• Deacon Carpenter Builds the Altar for Papal Mass in Washington, D.C., by Mark Zimmerman. Catholic Online. April 3, 2006:

  POOLESVILLE, MD (CNS) - For Deacon Dave Cahoon, working at his St. Joseph's Carpentry Shop on a quiet country road in Poolesville, this year's Holy Week was one like no other.

  "How awesome is this? It's Holy Thursday, and I'm working on the altar for the Eucharist, for the papal Mass. How awesome is that?" he said, smiling.

  With a hammer and chisel, the carpenter worked on a long maple board for the base of the altar that Pope Benedict XVI will use for his April 17 Mass at Nationals Park in Washington. . . .

• Newsday interviews Tom Baker of Patrick Baker & Sons Inc., of Southington, which will be supplying candles, vestments and other items for the pope's Masses in New York. Baker also supplied items for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1995, and will have the privilege of attending a smaller mass with the Pope in a chapel.

  Baker & Sons has done extensive work at St. Patrick's and at other Catholic churches in the Northeast, including renovations to bring sanctuaries into compliance with the Vatican II liturgical reforms enacted in the 1960s. Among those renovated sanctuaries were those at Most Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford and Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Woodbridge.

  "They did a fine job on both churches," the Rev. Gene Gianelli, former pastor of Holy Trinity, told the Record-Journal in 1995. "The Bakers are very sensitive to Vatican II."

  "Sensitive to Vatican II" how, exactly? -- A strange turn of phrase.

• "Crafting a perch fit for a pope" Philadelphia Enquirer March 30, 2008. Bonnie Cook reports on the creation of a chair for the Pope by Philadelphia craftsmen, to be used during his visit to Washington:

  The chair, which sits in the back of the DiCocco Family's St. Jude Shop in Havertown, where it was designed, can still be seen by the public.

  After Wednesday, though, the chair will leave the shop and become, for reasons of security, a ward of the U.S. Secret Service.

  "I hope they're careful with it," said John Huprich, who carried out the project in his Perkasie wood shop. "We don't want any nicks."

  The chair is scheduled to resurface April 16 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The pontiff will sit on it as he greets close to 400 Catholic bishops in the nation's capital.

  After that, the chair will be displayed in the basilica as a relic of the pope's visit, said Msgr. Walter Rossi, the basilica's rector. No one else will likely ever use it.