A clarification regarding my papal visit media credentials

Looking over the woes of Tim Drake for the National Catholic Register ("The Media "Nightmare" Has Already Begun") and Barb Fraze for Catholic News Service ("The nightmares of preparing for a papal visit)", I'm sorry to say that I think I've got them beat. Totally beat.

In what's sure to be a disappointment to my readers - for which I apologize - it's currently looking like I will not have media credentials for the pope's upcoming visit.

What's the story? It's no secret that the USCCB's media outreach website has been a rocky road for most of us who have tried to travel it. Long story short is that it looks like I misread my initial pre-accreditation email, and took a confirmation page ("please print this for your records," etc.) to mean that I had actually been awarded the credentials I requested. I've sent the USCCB an email asking for clarification, but haven't heard back.

In the meantime, in full disclosure, I'm posting this update and have removed the notice I had added to the template sidebar.

This doesn't mean, of course, that I won't still be covering the papal trip in-depth, it just means that I won't be covering the papal trip up close. I still have advance access to documents, I'll be on the ground in Washington DC, and enjoy an extensive network of colleagues who will be giving me reports of their experiences. Essentially I'm in the same boat as the majority of my hard-working, always-blogging fellow papists.

Looks like I'll be watching this one from the sidelines, but I'm used to that. I'm a blogger. :-)

Thanks in advance for your kind attention, and a few prayers at this stage certainly couldn't hurt.