Papa Payola

Somehow, I can't picture Jesus charging royalties for the Sermon on the Mount...

© Copyright Pope Benedict. All rights reserved.

A row has broken out in Rome about whether the speeches and writings of Pope Benedict should be freely available to everyone or subject to copyright.

The dispute was prompted by revelations that a publishing house in Milan had to pay £10,000 to reprint 30 lines from the first speech by the Pope following his election in April, after the Vatican transferred copyright on papal texts to its own publishing house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana. The Vatican also plans to charge rights on any papal texts of the past 50 years.

Now the feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables. So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold the doves he said, "Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father's house a marketplace!" (John 2:13-16)

Technorati Tags: pope, Benedict, royalties, copyright