Morning Catholic must-reads: 06/08/10

The Pope’s visit to Scotland could be disrupted by a day of strikes by council workers in a dispute over pay and conditions, reports the Bearsden Herald. Meanwhile, Edinburgh News says Benedict XVI’s visit will cost the city £400,000 ($634,700).

The Pope’s offer to Anglicans is “not a bargain basement sale“, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, has said in his latest pastoral letter.

Inside the Vatican reports that Joseph Ratzinger had hoped to become a librarian rather than pope.

The Economist finds intriguing signs of new life in European Catholicism.

In the New Statesman, Carla Powell calls for an end to liberal hostility against the Pope.

Novelist Anne Rice talks to the Los Angeles Times about her decision to leave the Church.

A new book claims that Russian Orthodox monks had an influence on the theory of infinity.

And Fr Joseph Komonchak continues to crank up the “Newmania“.