UPDATED: Despite presentation Tuesday, Homiletic Directory not available until Thursday (but it is on the web site of the Diocese of Davenport)

At the very least, living in the Eternal City is rarely boring. In fact, it is often quite frustrating.

As is now well known, having been widely reported, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments presented yesterday the new Homiletic Directory, which was signed last June. What took so long for the actual presentation is anyone's good guess.

During the presentation of the document, it was specifically noted that,

Translations into the principal languages have been undertaken by this Dicastery, while translations into other languages remain the responsibility of the concerned Conferences of Bishops. All things to the contrary notwithstanding.

Given that one of the principal languages is English, and since the news organ of the Holy See specifically announced that "the 'Homiletic Directory' is available both in English and Italian," I set out last evening to pick up a copy a that Vatican Bookstore before going to dinner with the priests and seminarians of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois who are now in Rome.

When I entered the store, I was quite surprised not to see any copies of the Homiletic Directory (in either English or Italian). After looking around a bit more carefully with still no success, I asked one of the sales associates. She informed me that the Homiletic Directory is not actually available until Thursday. She did not offer a reason why.

By now, this should not at all have surprised me.

Yet it did.

Wouldn't this have been good to note during the actual presentation of the document? Isn't this detail worthy of inclusion in the news report?

Who presents a document before it is available? Where is the sense in this? Who thought this was a good idea? Is this just another Vatican media blunder?

The text - in any language - is not even available yet on the Vatican web site.

UPDATE 1: A link to the text of the Homiletic Directory was shared with me on Twitter. Though the text is not on the Vatican web site, it is on the web site of the Diocese of Davenport, thus making the entire situation all more bizarre and puzzling.

UPDATE 2: The text is also available on the web site of the Diocese of Lansing.