As a Catholic, I viewed the Easter Sunday cover story on Pope Benedict XVI in this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine, with some trepidation. Russell Shorto's article Keeping the Faith, while not the hatchet job I had feared, did display the tin ear I have come to expect whenever the New York Times attempts to address the subject of Catholicism and the Pope.     Shorto opines that because this Pope has spent his life reinforcing the authority of the Church on doctrinal matters, he will not be able to help the Catholic Church meet the spiritual hunger that Shorto has found to exists in today's Europe, a hunger that Shorto says centers around the need for personal fellowship and which is best met by lay-based movements that thrive in the absence of both authority and dogma. Mr. Short thus considers it "curious" that Benedict's Wednesday prayers in St. Peter's...(Read Full Post)