Dear Matt, Did I detect a bit of vanity in that speech of yours?  It truly is a great honor to receive a Rotary Scholarship, but is it great enough to justify your slighting the Holy Father?  My gifted little nephew, if there’s one thing we can be sure of in this life, it’s that Christ will never abandon his Church, and the mark of his Church is the presence of Peter, Prince of Apostles, succeeded in every age by the bishops of Rome, also known as “popes.”   Take a lesson from today’s saint.  After Judas had committed suicide, Peter and the other Apostles, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, appointed Matthias to take his place – right there you have proof of what the early Church thought of the Apostolic office.  None of this “do your own thing” Christianity. Matthias didn’t appoint himself; he didn’t preach on his own authority; he and the others saw themselves as servants of Christ by being ministers of his word and his grace. Jesus has given us a Church, a living institution, both human (sometimes all too human!) and divine, an extension of his own incarnation, and it is through this Church that he has chosen to spread his Kingdom among all peoples. So before you take any more potshots at the Vicar of Christ on earth – even if such potshots will win you popularity – go back and read the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.  Rotary Scholarships are wonderful things (especially when you get one), but Christ gave no guarantee that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Rotary Clubs. That’s reserved for his Church, the Bark of Peter. Keep up the good work.  Uncle Eddy