VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI told Catholic bloggers and Facebook and YouTube users Monday to be respectful of others when spreading the Gospel online and not to see their ultimate goal as getting as many online hits as possible. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians to remain strong in the face of intolerance and violence in a New Year’s appeal that came several hours after a bomb blast outside an Egyptian church that killed at least 21 people as worshippers left Mass. (more)
A large hullabaloo has arisen after the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, leaked some comments the pope made regarding condom use in an upcoming book. Some media outlets have declared that the pope has now actually changed the Church’s millennia-old teaching on the evil of contraceptives. (more)
VATICAN CITY — Rain poured down on the colonnaded square outside, but inside St. Peter’s Basilica solemnity and good cheer reigned while Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl and 23 other men were called to join the College of Cardinals, the most powerful body of the Catholic Church after the pope. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the discrimination and violence Catholics suffer in the Middle East and said he hopes relations between the local Catholic Church and authorities can improve. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to the pope thanking him for opposing a Florida pastor’s threat to burn the Quran and calling for cooperation against secularism, the Vatican and the Iranian presidency said Saturday. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Italian authorities seized €23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account and said they have begun investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with a money-laundering probe. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican revised its in-house rules to deal with clerical sex abuse cases Thursday, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as well as children and doubling the statute of limitations for such crimes. (more)
VATICAN CITY — A cardinal under investigation in a sprawling corruption scandal denied wrongdoing and insisted yesterday that he acted for the good of the church while handling real estate transactions for the Vatican office that funds missionary work abroad. (more)
On the 30th anniversary of the cult film’s release, the official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has declared it a “Catholic classic”. (more)
The Vatican had praise Saturday for this week's announcement that scientists had created the world's first synthetic cell, calling it an “interesting result” that could help cure disease. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A leading German bishop who has acknowledged slapping children and is being investigated for sexual abuse of minors and financial misconduct lost his job Saturday as Pope Benedict XVI continued cleaning house. (more)
The two former Mexican seminarians had gone to the Vatican in 1998 to personally deliver a case recounting decades of sexual abuse by one of the most powerful priests in the Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. (more)
The Pope’s visit to Britain will not be affected by a leaked memo which appeared to mock the Catholic Church, the Vatican has said. (more)
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI referred Thursday to “attacks” on the church stemming from the clerical sexual abuse scandal and said “we Christians” must repent for sins and recognize mistakes, news reports said. (more)
ROME — Even as Pope Benedict XVI, faced with a sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, has called on victims to come forward and urged clerics to cooperate with civil justice, those strong words are running up against the complexities of his past. (more)
If the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is seriously thinking about running for the post of UN Secretary General, he probably can count on the support of the International Olympic Committee. (more)
ROME: Airport security chiefs probably thought they had enough to worry about with shoe bombers, underpants bombers and people who forget to put their toothpaste into those little plastic bags. If so, they were reckoning without Pope Benedict XVI. (more)
The Catholic News Service is reporting the Catholic Church plans to issue new guidelines for priests serving on cruise ships that, among other things, forbid them from performing weddings while at sea. (more)
