Morning Catholic must-reads: 10/01/12

Benedict XVI addressed the global financial crisis and religious freedom in his annual address to diplomats yesterday (full text, video, John Allen’s analysis).

Apostolic Visitor Mother Clare Millea has submitted her final report on American women religious to the Vatican.

English Bishop Michael Campbell has urged every parish priest in his diocese to hear Confessions for an hour on Wednesday evenings in Lent.

Alessandro Speciale says that the numbers show that it is Pope Benedict, rather than John Paul II, who “Italianised” the College of Cardinals.

Fr James Martin SJ asks whether God is rooting for the Denver Broncos in the NFL playoffs.

And the controversial John Paul II statue at the Termini Station in Rome is to get a new head after the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano described it as “excessively spherical“.