Joining the ranks

From the Associated Press:

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI named two new "doctors" of the church Sunday, conferring one of the Catholic Church's highest honors on a 16th-century Spanish preacher and a 12th-century German mystic who wasn't even officially recognized as a saint until earlier this year. St. John of Avila, Spain, and St. Hildegard of Bingen, Germany, join the ranks of only 33 other church doctors who have been singled out over the course of Christianity for their contributions to and influence on Catholic doctrine. Benedict named them doctors at the start of a Mass in St. Peter's Square that kicked off a two-week meeting of the world's bishops to chart the church's new evangelization mission.