Morning Catholic must-reads: 14/02/11

Benedict XVI said that the fullness of the Law is love during his Angelus address yesterday (video).

Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt, has said that the nation’s future is now in the hands of its people.

There are 410,593 Catholic priests in the world, according to the latest Vatican figures.

Priestly vocations are a sign of the vitality of Christian life, Pope Benedict told members of the Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of St Charles Borromeo on Saturday (full text, video).

Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Patriarch of Venice, has described the Pope’s visit to the city on May 7-8 as a “great gift“.

Prominent Anglo-Catholics Fr Ivan Aquilina and Fr James Bradley announced their intention to join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham yesterday, as did Fr Ed Tomlinson.

Brother Stephen Treat suggests that the average Sunday attendance at ordinariate parishes in the United States will surpass that of the Episcopal Church.

New York Times writer Russell Shorto asks whether the two parts of the term “Irish Catholic” will ever be separated.

John Allen argues that the Catholic Church in the United States lacks “missionary muscle”.

Joan Frawley Desmond considers how the journal First Things is faring two years after the death of Fr Richard John Neuhaus.

Philip Johnson, a seminarian with an inoperable brain tumour, tells the story of his vocation (video).

And Spain’s World Cup-winning football team has postponed a papal audience because it might have disrupted Barcelona’s preparations for their clash with Arsenal this week.