Daily News Channel
Prince Charles of Britain is meeting the pope Monday for the first time since his 1996 divorce from Princess Diana, representatives for both sides said. The heir to the United Kingdom throne will be accompanied by his second wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. Prince Charles’s accession to the throne is likely to be an unspoken subtext of the meeting, an expert on the prince told CNN
Critics took to the social networking site Facebook to voice their fury over Pope Benedict’s remark that condoms do not prevent HIV. Thousands have pledged to send the pontiff millions of condoms to protest the controversial comment he made to journalists as he flew to Cameroon last week. “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Angola on Friday as part of his week-long visit to Africa, a journey marked by the pontiff’s controversial comments on reproductive issues and some of the continent’s political regimes. In Angola, however, the Pontiff drew attention to the nation’s lingering economic disparity despite having substantial diamond deposits and oil reserves that surpass Nigeria
Pope Benedict XVI’s opposition to condoms, even as a weapon to help combat the spread of AIDS, should surprise no one who knows anything about Catholic Church teachings. The 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, penned by Pope Paul VI, explicitly forbids contraception as denying the Creator’s will that humans be fruitful and multiply
Pope Benedict XVI hopes his planned visit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall next month will be taken as a gesture of reconciliation in the long-troubled relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church. But at least one influential rabbi will take offense — unless the pontiff removes or conceals the golden cross he wears on a chain around his neck, “out of respect” for the Jews. Explaining his demand that Benedict hide the very symbol of the Catholicism he represents, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the spiritual authority responsible for overseeing Judaism’s most sacred site, told TIME, “I wouldn’t go into a church wearing Jewish symbols, out of respect for the place, and I would expect that the Pope would act the same here.” Quoting King Solomon, the rabbi says that the Temple in Jerusalem was “a house of prayer for all people, not just Jews.” He added: “We welcome this Pope.
Tens of thousands of people packed a soccer stadium in Cameroon Thursday, including President Paul Biya and his wife, for the first large-scale mass of Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to Africa. Africa is the last continent that Benedict had left to visit, and one he could not avoid, said David Gibson, a biographer of the pope
The Pope has admitted making mistakes over the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. In a letter to church leaders, parts of which have been published on a popular Catholic blog, Pope Benedict XVI says the church should have been aware of the views of Bishop Richard Williamson. Williamson, an Englishman, hit the headlines partly because the pope lifted his long-standing excommunication, along with that of three other members of the ultra-conservative Society of St
The Vatican said Friday it is not satisfied by the apology issued by a Catholic bishop who denied the Holocaust, saying the cleric must still clearly "distance himself" from the controversial comments. Bishop Richard Williamson, who is now in England, issued a statement Thursday saying he regretted making the remarks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Pope Benedict XVI Sunday over a Holocaust denier whom the pope welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church last month. Neither side seems to have shifted its position over Bishop Richard Williamson, who, shortly before the pope lifted his excommunication, denied the Nazis had systematically murdered six million Jews during World War II