Did you know the Pope Benedict had a podcast? I didn’t, not until last week anyway. Vatican Radio has had a long history of great broadcasting since its founding in 1931 under Pope Pius XI. But who knew they could do RSS with the best?

So here’s the nitty-gritty on the Pope’s podcast: There are actually two. The first podcast is the complete audio of the Pope’s Wednesday audiences and Sunday Angelus messages. Now the Pope has a habit of giving his audiences in 5 or 6 languages, so you have to fast forward through to find the English. But Vatican Radio has already done the work for you in the second podcast, which is their English language programming. On Wednesdays they include only the English portion of the Pope’s audiences which is usually 2-3 min.

I subscribed to both. The first one keeps about 10 episodes live on their server, so does the second one, but you have to pick through them to find the Pope’s voice. NOTE: The first podcast is also carrying the Pope’s addresses at World Youth Day, which he gives in English first.

Here’s the Pope’s rss podcast links:
Number One:http://www.radiovaticana.org/rss/rss.xml
Number Two: http://www.radiovaticana.org/RSS/inglese.xml

Vatican Radio also maintains a site of recent mp3’s of the Pope’s voice. This contains mainly the same things as on the podcast, but some additional material like speeches and other things. Also, Vatican Radio puts up podcasts in some 9 languages, so if you happen to want to know what’s going on at the Vatican, but want to hear it in Swedish just to spice things up, you can.

Pope Benedict mp3’s:
http://www.vaticanradio.org/en1/indice.asp?RedaSel=43&CategSel=16
All Vatican Radio Podcasts:
http://www.vaticanradio.org/en1/rss_feeds.asp

Oh yeah, and you can also watch TV of Papal liturgies at the Vatican Radio website:
Live Video: http://www.vaticanradio.org/en1/video_ctv.asp
On Demand Video: http://www.vaticanradio.org/en1/video_menu.asp