Stats for March 2011

 With Lent having begun this month, the top 10 of most-read posts has a distinct Lenten taste. Last year’s post about the Stations of the Cross is, fittingly for this time of year, at number 1. Japan ranks understandably also high, as  do messages for Lent, and a post about Ash Wednesday.

The number of visitors for March was 4,939, the second-highest number since I began this blog. The total number of visitors is now 76,943.

1: The Stations of the Cross 247
2: A surprise to no one, a Dutch politician in favour of rampant secularisation 137
3: Pray for Japan 94
4: To rub or not to rub 93
5: Boodschap voor de Vastentijd 2011 64
6: Bootcamp program unfolds 53
7: Stille Omgang 2011, Dutch missionary bishop in the dock 52
8: Dutch bishops’ encouragement for Lent 49
9: Papal message for Lent 43
10: St. John the Baptist in Bulgaria? 40

Bad news to be a Haarlem bishop?

One would almost start to believe so. After Bishop Jos Punt’s Lufthansa airplane had to make an emergency landing in Dubrovnik as the ordinary of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam was on his way to Ethiopia (for the celebration of Timkat, the Ethiopian Orthodox celebration of the Baptism of the Lord) in January, auxiliary Bishop Jan van Burgsteden is involved in a car accident.

Thankfully, both bishops escaped unharmed. On 28 March, the car carrying Bishop van Burgsteden was part of a collision of several cars, vans and trucks on the A1 motorway near Baarn, east of the bishop’s home city of Amsterdam. Two people were seriously injured and had to be taken to hospital with six others. The bishop was escorted home by police and is now recovering from the shock.

The diocesan curia have offered a Mass out of thanksgiving and for a quick recovery.