Today in Crikey, The Power Index’s Paul Barry valiantly attempts to cost the new multimillion dollar pilgrim centre at the Vatican, known as Domus Australia.
Vatican
Crikey Says: Cardinal Pell blind to the cost
Video of the Day: The topless Vatican dancers
This is a has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed video. Watch a recent performance at the Vatican, where male dancers in tight white pants take off their jackets and perform an acrobatic routine topless to Pope Benedict XVI. The nuns wave excitedly and take photos.
Come in Spinner: Come in Spinner: inside the prolific Vatican PR outfit
For an organisation that prides itself on its millennia-long view of the world, heaven and all things in between, the Vatican certainly spends a lot of time focused on day-to-day public relations.
Vatican: washing away €23 million worth of sins
Further trouble for the Catholic Church, with Italian authorities seizing a whopping €23 million from a Vatican Bank account, amid allegations of money-laundering.
Vatican rates Pope Joan pic a must miss
The Vatican enjoys indulging in a spot of film criticism from time to time, and the verdict is in for a new production depicting a female pontiff in the nineteenth century: avoid.
Dear Pope Benedict: we would like to keep shagging priests
Forty Italian women who have had relationships with Catholic priests have written an open letter to the Pope, calling for the Vatican to scrap its policy on celibacy for priests.
Plain-talkin’ Pell to get a promotion
Word is that Aussie Cardinal George Pell is about to be appointed as the Vatican’s head prefect, putting him in charge of 5000 Bishops worldwide. Heads will roll, predicts Damian Thompson.
Can all the celebrity atheists please shut up?
Pope Benedict XVI is being crucified over the sexual abuse scandals, when he’s the Pope who’s made the biggest attempts to rid the Catholic Church of abuse, writes Mary Elias.
Here’s a crazy idea: What if the Pope is innocent?
How much actual evidence is there against Pope Benedict? None at all. Sure lots of people, including many Catholics, dislike the Pope. But being unpopular is not a crime, writes Paul Mees.
An interview with the Pope’s US lawyer
What’s it like being the advocate for the man who is supposed to be God’s representative on Earth? And what happens when he’s caught up in a worldwide sex abuse cover-up scandal? Meet Jeffrey Lena: the California litigator who may have one of the worst jobs on the planet.
Noonan: How to save the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is not beyond salvation, argues Peggy Noonan, but it will take a new culture of openness and repentance, and a new generation of priests and nuns, to do it.
Pope speaks: We need to “do penance” for our “sins”
Pope Benedict XVI has ended his silence on the sex-abuse scandals engulfing the Catholic Church, saying that the Church had avoided using the word “penance” but it was now obvious that was needed.
PHOTO GALLERY: Creepy Pope pictures
Yes, serious scandals are unfolding down at St Peter’s Basilica, but perhaps it’s no surprise judging on this terrifying gallery of Pope Benedict XVI looking evil and battling his flying cape.
PHOTO GALLERY: Feel the Catholic guilt
The Catholic Church is playing the blame game, accusing anyone and everyone it can for the horrible paedophilia scandals engulfing the church. Salon wraps the list of culprits, from the gays to the NY Times.
Sullivan: The Pope must resign
Atlantic columnist and Catholic Andrew Sullivan says the Catholic Church will have to undergo a “wrenching transformation” if it’s going to survive its recent scandals: the Pope must quit, and priests must be allowed to shag.
Guy Rundle: 
Catholic collapse started long before the kiddie-fiddling
Recent revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church are hardly the institution’s first catastrophic moral collapse, says Guy Rundle: its accommodation of the Holocaust was the end of its real existence.
The sex scandals destroying the Vatican
New sex scandals involving priests, abuse, cover-ups and gay prostitutions rings has struck the Catholic Church in Europe, and the culture of silence and suppression is causing the Church to crumble, writes James Carroll.
Lessons in History: The little Aussie battler who’s heading for sainthood
So, we’ve got ourselves a saint. As an Australian, an educational professional and a fan of giving the boss a hard time, I say ‘Onya, Mary!’ says Mike Stuchbery.
Are people reading waaay too much into Avatar?
Feminists, the Vatican, neo-cons, the Chinese, environmentalists… is there any special interest group that hasn’t projected its own agenda onto sci-fi blockbuster Avatar?
Why the Vatican’s newspaper has embraced pop culture
The semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano, seems to spend more time writing about The Simpsons and Harry Potter than Catholicism these days. Is it a shameless cash grab, or is the Pope hipper than everyone thinks?
The OTHER miracles of Mary MacKillop, as told to Walter Slurry
Mary MacKillop has been granted Sainthood for performing two miracles … but what about the other miracles she is alleged to have performed? Walter Slurry takes a look at her lesser know saintly acts.
The Vatican discovers LOLcats, Rick Astley and hax0rz
Ambassadors from the Web 2.0 — aka execs from Google, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia — are headed to the Vatican to introduce Catholic bishops to the mysterious ways of the internet. We think the Pope and his pals will fit riiiight in.
VIDEO: Sarah Silverman: End world hunger, sell the Vatican
Sarah Silverman has got world hunger all figured out. Just sell the Vatican and use the $500 billion to feed all the poor children. That way, you won’t have to see them on your HD flat screen television looking sad.
Blair’s mission from God rings hollow
Former British PM Tony Blair continued his Mission from God last week with a star-billing at a conference at the Vatican. Too bad his actions in office don’t coincide with his Catholic principles.
Why should priests retire at 75?
Despite dwindling numbers of priests, the Catholic Church refuses to retain influential men of the cloth with wide appeal, like Father Bob Maguire, once they reach 75, writes Crikey intern James Pattison.
