All the incense and intrigue of another papal conclave is upon us again. Well, sort of.
Jesuits to Elect a New ‘Black Pope’
Tag Archives: benedict
Pope Benedict XVI to Welcome Anglicans to Catholicism
At first glance, the surprising news on Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI has created a new structure to welcome some disenchanted Anglicans into the Roman Catholic fold — it was accompanied by a joint statement from his counterpart, the Archbishop of Canterbury — might look like a happy reunion.
‘Father Damien’ among new Vatican saints
Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints Sunday, including a 19th-century priest who worked with ostracized leprosy patients in Hawaii before contracting the disease himself and dying from it.
Pope in secular Czech Republic: Keep faith
Pope Benedict XVI urged a crowd of 120,000 worshippers in one of Europe’s most secular countries to remain faithful to religious tradition on Sunday. Mickelson won the Tour Championship on Sunday with a final-round 65, leaving Woods a runner-up at six-under but still a winner of the FedEx Cup title, according to Golf.com
Pope outrages Jews over Holocaust denier
Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers. The pope’s decree, issued Saturday, brings back into the Catholic Church’s fold Bishop Richard Williamson and three other bishops who belong to the Society of Saint Pius X
After Kennedy’s Death: Silence from the Pope
There was a poignant footnote to President Obama’s historic July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Behind closed doors in the papal library, Obama handed Benedict a letter that Senator Edward Kennedy had asked him to personally deliver to the pontiff. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later told reporters that nobody — not even the President — knew the contents of the sealed missive.
The Pope’s Sex Abuse Challenge
Pope Benedict XVI’s trip this week to the United States will include high-profile visits to the White House, United Nations and Ground Zero. But no matter what political issues or media angles may be buzzing before take-off, the Vatican tends to stress the pastoral aspect of any papal journey. The six-day itinerary is above all stacked with church services, baseball stadium masses and Catholic institutional encounters to allow the pontiff to tend to his flock, and to the priests and bishops who do the ministering when he’s back in Rome
A Hard-Line Sequel to the Case of the Pregnant Nine-Year Old
The Catholic Church were presented with a public relations powder keg last March when news broke that a nine-year-old Brazilian girl underwent an abortion after she’d been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather. Catholics from Sao Paolo to Paris were outraged after the swift public declaration by the local archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, that the girl’s family, as well as the doctors who performed the abortion, were automatically excommunicated. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, a solidly traditionalist Rome prelate considered close to Benedict, tried to soften the Church’s approach on the Brazilian case by writing in the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the girl “should have been defended, hugged and held tenderly to help her feel that we were all on her side.” Two weeks ago, the Vatican announced that Sobrinho, who had been serving past retirement, was stepping down
Pope breaks wrist in fall at mountain retreat
Pope Benedict XVI was briefly hospitalized after suffering a minor fracture to his right wrist, the Vatican said Friday.
Pope blasts capitalism ahead of G-8 meeting
Pope Benedict XVI, on the eve of a global economic summit, lashed out at modern capitalism for being shortsighted and short on ethics. “Today’s international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise,” the pontiff said in his third encyclical letter, “Charity in Truth,” which was released Tuesday.