You Know You Want the Pope Calendar!

I am sure that just about everyone knows that the Pope has "posed" for a calendar.

I have the ordering information. Forget the exorbitant prices being asked on e-bay. They are selling on e-bay for nearly $30 and some have sold for as much as $66! The real calendar can be ordered directly from the publisher by e-mailing abbonamenti@stpauls.it or vpc@stpauls.it. Send your request and they will send you the price and the online ordering form.

I sent my request in last night and got a response this morning. I'll let you know when they arrive!

For those who don't know about the calendar, here are the details from CNS.

In Italy, where calendars usually feature scantily clad movie stars or action shots of sports heroes, Pope Benedict XVI agreed to be photographed for a calendar to raise money for Rwandan children.

The calendar, to be released Nov. 23 by the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, features 14 photographs of Pope Benedict taken in August at the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo.

The calendar will sell in Italy for 5 euros (US$6.40) with 1 euro (US$1.28) from each calendar going directly to Nazareth Town, a Catholic-run orphanage and hospital caring for more than 300 boys and girls in Mbare, Rwanda.A spokeswoman for Famiglia Cristiana said Nov. 9 there were no plans to publish the calendar outside Italy.

Giancarlo Giuliani, who has been shooting popes for Famiglia Cristiana for 40 years, took the photographs.

"I was on vacation and the editor called and said, 'Come back. We have to go see the pope,'" Giuliani said.He said Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family and a longtime supporter of Nazareth Town, originally had asked Famiglia Cristiana and Pope John Paul II to do a benefit calendar.

After Pope John Paul's death in 2005, Pope Benedict offered to fulfill his predecessor's commitment to the project.

"He is more shy than Pope John Paul," Giuliani said. "But he was incredibly kind and willing."

The photographer said he snapped more than 200 shots of the pope in the villa's chapel, library, office and gardens.

"I tried to get the most spontaneous, natural shots," Giuliani said. "I did not try to pose him."

The 200 shots were whittled down to 40, then 14 were chosen: one for the cover and one for each month from December 2006 to December 2007.