Happy Birthday, Pope Benedict!

I was so excited for a minute.  I saw this photo and I thought, “I have a scoop!”  Then I looked more closely, and I am almost certain that’s the papal nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, standing there on the right.  Archbishop Sambi, you may recall, died a few months ago.

So the photo is cool, but it’s apparently from a different year, not this year’s papal birthday party.

One interesting tidbit:  There have been 265 popes since St. Peter, and only five of them have lived to the age of 85.  Tomorrow, Pope Benedict XVI joins their number.