Quote of the Day: Pope Francis

Since Pope Francis of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the first Pope to ever be on the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine, who also happens to be from the land of Barcelona soccer great Lionel Messi, whom along with Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers is a spokes person for Turkish Airlines, we thought we'd quote the pontiff today:

"I love tango, and I used to dance when I was younger."

http://www.rollingstone.com

http://www.vatican.va/

http://ncronline.org/

http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php

http://www.turkishairlines.com/

Catholicism By the Numbers

Many people in America and Europe may not realize it, but there are a fair number of Catholics in Turkey, my late father's country, in addition to a sizable Jewish community, particularly in the largest city of Istanbul.

Though I'm not a Catholic myself, I thought that with the crowning of a new papal head in Pope Francis I of Argentina and the fact that tomorrow is Easter Sunday, I thought I would post an entry to look at how many Catholics live in countries where they are in the minority.

The image above is of a Catholic church in Buyukada, an island in the inland Marmara Sea that is considered to be part of Istanbul; this is also where one sees many horse carriages as seen below.

In addition to Catholic churches in Istanbul, there are congregations in Izmir and Mersin.

And, as one might expect, Wikipedia states that there are very few Catholics in Afghanistan; here is a look at some of the numbers we found:

1. Afghanistan 200

2. Armenia 110,000

3. Cyprus 10,000

4. Jordan 170,000

5. Kuwait 140,000

6. Serbia 411,000

7. Turkey 35,000

http://www.catholic.org

http://www.adalarturizm.org

Correction: We Meant Philip, Not Paul

Since I spent many years working as a journalist where I covered many things like Winston-Salem, NC, city council meetings (I didn't actually work in Winston-Salem, but it seems like a good generic city to plug in for this entry), I go through great lengths to make sure I don't post misinformation here, even if it's about Republicans.

But, I did flub yesterday when I said that my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight said that the Apostle Paul's tomb was discovered near Denizli, Turkey, recently. As it turns out, it was Apostle Philip's tomb that was discovered. So, to make up for it- especially for all my Catholic friends, I will wish Pope Benedict well as he visits Madrid, Spain, over the next few days. And, hopefully, I will not have to retract and say that he is actually going to Valencia (another city in Spain).

Turkey, which happens to be my late father's country, has been in the news a lot lately. In addition to the discovery of Philip's tomb, the following things have happened there either fairly recently or within the last few days as have been reported in Turkey's two English-language newspapers, "Hurriyet Daily News" and "Today's Zaman:"

1) Israel has refused to apologize for the raid aboard the Marmara flotilla, which killed many Turkish activisits who were attempting to give humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

2) Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Syria's Bashar Assad to stop the violence against residential protestors throughout Syria, which caused a major influx of refugees into Turkey.

3) Aziz Yildirim, the president of Istanbul soccer power Fenerbahce, has been arrested and charged with match-fixing, a scandal which is involving many teams. Melih Gokcek, the current mayor of the Turkish capital Ankara has also been pulled into the mess as he was once the president of the soccer team Ankaraspor.

4) As of yesterday, Turkish military planes attacked PKK (Kurdish Worker's Party) terrorists in northern Iraq. The PKK guerillas have struck Turkish military headquarters with attacks in the Hakari province in far southeastern Turkey.

All of this is occuring as many religious Turkish people are celebrating the Ramadan holiday!

And, I should retract the statement that I was going on hiatus.

Oh well, we tried!