I got a very interesting phone call from Anahat Kaur, the physician I quoted earlier about how the Sikhs got cut out of the April 17 papal audience. In a previous story, I had quoted a Secret Service spokesman as saying the discussions between them and the Sikhs had gone on for "months" but that both sides had reached an impasse on whether they would be allowed to bring in their religiously mandated swords or daggers.

She called me to say the timeline was false. In fact, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had not even gotten on the matter until Feb. 14, she said, which is when they informed the Secret Service that some of the guests would be carrying their daggers, also known as "kirpans." World Sikh Council leaders, the USCCB and the Secret Service then had a conference call the next day.

"On Feb. 19, the Secret Service told us our presence would not be possible," she told me. "It was one conference call and then they made a decision. It is so disingenuous for them to say this is a safety issue."

First off, the guests get thoroughly searched in a secure place before being transported to the papal meeting site. "They said they weren't concerned about the Sikhs using the kirpan (on the pope) but they thought someone else would grab it," she said. "That's just crazy.

"If I wanted to harm the pope, I could just grab a cross and bang him on the hed with it."

I called the Secret Service to ask about this rather huge discrepancy and never got a call back.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times