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2:00 PM, Mar 18, 2013 • By DANIEL HALPER

Vice President Joe Biden, who is in Rome for the new pope's inaugural mass, says he "better show up" at party with cardinals tonight or "I'll lose my soul." Via the pool report:

News: VP Biden is attending a reception tonight with the presidential delegation to the inaugural mass and American officials based in Rome. Biden says he has to attend "or I'll lose my soul."

Biden's comment came as he met at the Villa Aurelia with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. Pool was ushered in after the meeting had begun but while it was still in small-talk mode.

"We invited the American cardinals to a reception," Biden told Nikolic. "So unless I'm prepared to join the Eastern Orthodox Church, as a Roman Catholic, I'd better show up or I'll lose my soul."

Per Biden's office: "This evening, the Vice President and Presidential Delegation to the Inaugural Mass of Pope Francis are attending a reception at Villa Aurelia hosted by Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Mario Mesquita with U.S. Cardinals, U.S. Members of Congress, and officials from U.S Embassy Rome, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome."

Jorge Mario Bergoglio at his first mass as Pope Francis in the Sistine Chapel

An Argentinian Jesuit in the Vatican.

Mar 25, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 27 • By JOSEPH BOTTUM

There was much talk during the recent conclave in Rome, as there usually is at such times, about the Catholic church as a medieval institution. Occasionally that took the mild form of newspaper Sunday supplement pieces brightly describing the voting process in the Sistine Chapel. More often it combined a sneer at the past with an attack on the present.

11:39 AM, Mar 15, 2013 • By DANIEL HALPER

The White House announced that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi will be representing America at the pope's inaugural mass. Both Biden and Pelosi are Catholics and pro-abortion.

The race is close, and turnout promises to be high.

Mar 4, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 24 • By JOSEPH BOTTUM

The next pope will be Christoph Schönborn, cardinal archbishop of Vienna. The principal editor of the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church, Schönborn was among Benedict’s favorite students back when the current pope was a theology professor, and he stands as one of the few high clerics to act heroically during the sexual-abuse scandal.