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I sure didn't.

From the Catholic News Agency:

While resting up at Castel Gandolfo, the Holy Father will be taking the time to catch a film on Friday. The Pontiff will watch "Under the Roman Sky," a movie about Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Rome and his attempt to kidnap Pope Pius XII.

Whoa. Seriously?

At least some people seem to think so. In 2007 a book was published on the subject by Washington reporter Dan Kurzman. The broader aim of the book, "A Special Mission," was to refute the myth of Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope."

The kidnapping story is not without its skeptics. Wikipedia actually has a page on Hitler's "alleged" plot to kidnap Pius XII. Some say it did happen, and some say it was just a rumor that was spread by allied propagandists.

As for the movie, Pius XII is played by actor James Cromwell, who played a chauffeur with superhuman strength in Murder By Death (1976), a kindly sheep farmer who befriends a pig in Babe (1995), and Jack Bauer's evil dad in season 6 of 24.

The mini-series is set in the streets of Rome during the Nazi occupation. According to Italy's AGI News, the plot develops along the course of nine months, and features Jews being taken from the ghetto and a failed attempt by the Nazis to abduct the Pope.

The film, made by the Italian production company Lux Vide, also illustrates the Church's efforts to protect and save Jews during the war, the very subject that raised a considerable amount controversy after Pope Benedict declared Pius XII "Venerable" on Dec. 19, 2009

I can't help imagining what Quentin Tarantino's version of this whole scenario might look like. The SS surrounds St. Peter's square, and hiding in the chapel is the Holy Father with his Swiss guards, who morph into a band of super-assassins. ... I'll just stop right there.

Providing viewers with nine fantastic years of action, romance, terrorist plots, idiot plots, suspense, extreme measures, melodrama, personality disorder, and office pettiness, Fox's hit '24' is finally getting cancelled at the end of this, its eighth, season.

That means we the Jack Bauer faithful have twelve precious weeks to enjoy watching the counter-terrorist extraordinaire, played by Kiefer Sutherland, kick some evil-doer derriere. Read about it here, here, and here.

The moral value of the program has been a subject of debate among Catholics and other Christians, and rightly so. Certainly Jack Bauer does some things in the film that would be, were he a real person, not entirely licit. Torture of terror suspects, for example. Some consider that a deal breaker for the show. Oh, and the fact that he kills literally dozens of people each season.

But for me it is not a deal breaker because, well, it is just plain entertaining. It is fun to watch Jack Bauer save the world, year after year.

Also, there are merits to this show that are sorely lacking in way too many television shows these days. One is the presence of clear-cut good guys and clear-cut bad guys. It's tempting to say that in real life people don't neatly fit into such cookie-cutter categories.

But the heroes in 24 clearly have their own flaws, their own failings. Jack Bauer is the clearest example. The bad guys, similarly, have their good points.

But there is never any doubt that one set of characters is fighting ultimately for good, and the other set is ultimately fighting for evil. The fact that there is even a good-vs.-evil struggle immediately sets the show apart from countless banal reality shows and sitcoms where all the characters care about is themselves.

Also a big part the progression of the character of Jack Bauer over the years, which I have particularly enjoyed watching, has been his gradual rediscovery of his own soul. I have noticed in this most recent season that Jack, even as he is still racking up kill after kill, is beginning to find some redemption for all the things in his past that haunt him. It is kind of redemption that he is seeking, and even beginning to find.

There's a lot to admire about Jack Bauer. His refusal to compromise. His ability to overcome adversity, to play hurt. His commitment to saving the lives of noncombatants. His love for his family.

And, of course, his ability to squarely wedge his boot in the posteriors of and strike fear into the hearts of evildoers. Here's to twelve more weeks of Jack Bauer throwing down for freedom.

Oh, and the expected movie, in which I predict everyone will finally have discovered that they should always do what Jack Bauer says, allowing the movie to take place in real time, and be called "3."