I suppose a reputable news shop like ours should be concerned with winning Pulitzers and A1 real estate, but every once in a while, we find professional satisfaction in the little things-like making it into News of the Weird.

Frank Rocca’s story about the hunt for Jesus’ lost foreskin was picked up by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in December, and then, by the weekly News of the Weird syndicated column:

“Writer David Farley said he is investigating the 1983 disappearance of the ‘Holy Prepuce,’ which is a patch of the foreskin of Jesus and supposedly was the only body part he might have left on Earth. Until it went missing, it was the centerpiece of each January’s Feast of the Holy Circumcision at the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in Calcata, Italy. Several theories persist about its disappearance, the most enduring of which is that it was swiped on orders from the Vatican, which was troubled by the attention it had historically received, according to a December Religion News Service dispatch. [Star Tribune (Minneapolis), 12-7-07]”