The WSJ thinks there’s something to the Brits’ royal wedding upstaging the JP2 beatification. I’m not so sure. The events are two days apart, aren’t they? True believers of the Catholic strain would flock to Rome in any event, wouldn’t they? Plans for the JP2 crowd have been downgraded from a million to less than 800K. Are one in five or even four potential pilgrims really lured by Kate riding in a horse drawn carriage wearing a dress with a train as long as a magna cappa?
My suspicion: once they found out all those bloggers were going to descend on Rome, sensible Catholics made other plans.
Seriously: it’s the economy.
Catholic Sensibility 
The “something” that’s implied by the WSJ writer is attributed to the Vatican, not Buckingham Palace – namely, another media cock-up that was driven by internal reasons without considering the larger context.
What’s not mentioned is the Divine Mercy connection, which is what I recall the original scheduling had in mind to reinforce. The Labor Day 3-day holiday is another factor.
But there’s also the fact that the Long Lent of 2010 meant Europeans are not going to flock the way they once did…..
Gee, maybe this celebration of fast-track “beatification” doesn’t go too well with the pew potatoes. And no matter how hard they try, septuagenarians in long trains do NOT upstage a beautiful young woman on her royal wedding day! Oh, yes, some of them do try, though.