“Who’s Afraid of Sacred Soccer?” is a June 16, 2010, essay at ReligionDispatches.org by Gary Laderman, head of the Department of Religion at Emory University.

Douglas Pratt is a Professor of Religious Studies in the department of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Ethics at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. His areas of expertise include Christianity, Islam, Christian-Muslim relations, interreligious dialogue, and religious issues such as pluralism, fundamentalism and extremism.

Read a June 24, 2010, story published in the Los Angeles Times about the change of leadership in Afghanistan from Gen. Stanly McChrystal to Gen. David Patraeus.

Read the June 22, 2010, profile published by Rolling Stone about Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. After the article was published, McChrystal was removed from his post for the unflattering comments he made about the Obama administration.

The BBC maintains a profile on Pope Benedict XVI.

The New York Times has a Times Topics page on Benedict.

Sandro Magister is a Vaticanologist and an Italian journalist whose website, Chiesa, has an English-language archive of Magister’s insider essays on the Vatican, including all the developments of Benedict’s papacy.

Karate for Christ is an international organization of karate schools and teachers who approach this martial art with a Christian perspective. Among its goals is evangelization of Asia and Asian communities. David Dunn is director.

Catholic Bishop Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., has a column featuring 10 ways to mark the Pauline year.