Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Chairman of the Board


It's anyone's call who gets more laden with trinkets when visiting foreign lands, the President or the Pope. Be that as it may, when his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI visits New York City ten days from now, he will find himself the proud recipient of an item no other Pope has ever received, a Papal Skateboard. A skateboarding club that meets at St. Elizabeth's Church in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan (I have new-found respect for those scruffy-looking lads) and their priest adviser, Fr. Peter Pomposello (a superb young priest who will be a bishop some day, your Bloviator predicts) came up with the idea, proposed it to the Archdiocese of New York, which to its great credit endorsed it, and announced a contest for the skateboard's design (you can view all the entries here).

Three finalists were chosen and now the Archdiocese is asking people to vote on the designs to help determine which will be embossed on the board presented to the Pope. Go here, choose the design you like and click on it to vote (your Bloviator's pick is shown above but don't let that influence you).

What's appealing about this project is the designs are all by kids so it would be a fine thing indeed if many votes were cast (you can also buy your own skateboard to benefit the Archdiocese's inner-city charities). I suspect the Holy Father will really get a kick out of this gift. Maybe he'll do a few ollies in St. Peter's Square: he can pick up some pointers from this guy.



(Thanks to Mark the Wannabee for the video link.)

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