"Baby Boom with Patriarch Promise to Personally Baptize Babies #3+"

I like ending the news week on a high note. It doesn't get much better than this:

The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, came up with an astonishingly successful incentive to counteract the country's plummeting birth rate.

He promised to personally baptize any baby born to parents of more than two children.

The BBC reported that the results have been, in the words of the Georgian Orthodox Church, "a miracle," with the country's birth rate increasing by nearly 20% during 2008 - a rate four times faster than the previous year.

While Georgia was under the domination of the former Soviet Union, the Orthodox religion was all but suppressed in the country, but now the BBC reports that the Patriarch plays a very influential role in Georgian society, with many seeing him as the most authoritative figure in their lives. (LifeSite)

Imagine if American Bishops made that same promise to families in their diocese?

The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club has it's newest member!

... in the person of Raphael Joseph Feldman-Blosser, son to Christopher Blosser, who runs Against the Grain, Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, & Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club, as announced by proud grandfather Philip Blosser, who runs Musings of a Pertinacious Papist (an entirely-laudable title).

Christopher, public notice: I owe you a cigar when we meet!

God's blessings on all the Blossers.