A furor has erupted in Britain over comments by the pope seen as critical of a new law the Roman Catholic church fears will force it to accept homosexuals into its ranks.
Pope John Paul II used to beat himself with a belt and sleep on a bare floor to bring himself closer to Christ, a book published Wednesday says.
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter Want to get health care legislation passed in Congress? Send the elected men home, one congresswoman reportedly suggests. Shea-Porter, a New Hampshire Democrat, said as much at a Manchester town hall meeting last weekend, according to The Hill.com. It reports someone released 55 seconds of her remarks, which went viral and made national headlines.
The pope has summoned several Irish bishops to the Vatican to discuss a report documenting child abuse by Irish clergy members, the Vatican spokesman said Wednesday.
Pope Benedict XVI visited the main Jewish synagogue in Rome on Sunday, a trip that unfolded amid heightened tension between Catholics and Jews.
Pope Benedict XVI is set to take one step forward in Catholic-Jewish relations Sunday when he becomes the first pope since 1986 to visit the main Jewish synagogue in Rome, Italy.
Pope Benedict XVI met privately on Wednesday with the woman who dragged him to the ground on Christmas Eve, the Vatican said.
Pope Benedict XVI championed the environment in the Vatican's annual World Day of Peace message.
Pope Benedict XVI ended 2009 much as he began it -- with a major gaffe that angered Jews.
An Irish bishop resigned Wednesday following a government report into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy -- the second to do so.
A furor has erupted in Britain over comments by the pope seen as critical of a new law the Roman Catholic church fears will force it to accept homosexuals into its ranks.
Pope John Paul II used to beat himself with a belt and sleep on a bare floor to bring himself closer to Christ, a book published Wednesday says.
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter Want to get health care legislation passed in Congress? Send the elected men home, one congresswoman reportedly suggests. Shea-Porter, a New Hampshire Democrat, said as much at a Manchester town hall meeting last weekend, according to The Hill.com. It reports someone released 55 seconds of her remarks, which went viral and made national headlines.
The pope has summoned several Irish bishops to the Vatican to discuss a report documenting child abuse by Irish clergy members, the Vatican spokesman said Wednesday.
Pope Benedict XVI visited the main Jewish synagogue in Rome on Sunday, a trip that unfolded amid heightened tension between Catholics and Jews.
Pope Benedict XVI is set to take one step forward in Catholic-Jewish relations Sunday when he becomes the first pope since 1986 to visit the main Jewish synagogue in Rome, Italy.
Pope Benedict XVI met privately on Wednesday with the woman who dragged him to the ground on Christmas Eve, the Vatican said.
Pope Benedict XVI championed the environment in the Vatican's annual World Day of Peace message.
Pope Benedict XVI ended 2009 much as he began it -- with a major gaffe that angered Jews.
An Irish bishop resigned Wednesday following a government report into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy -- the second to do so.
It was a Vatican announcement guaranteed to spark controversy.
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri One of Iran's most senior dissident clerics and a staunch defender of the nation's opposition movement died Sunday at 87.
Pope John Paul II was a step closer to sainthood Saturday after Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree recognizing the late pontiff's "heroic virtues" and declaring him "venerable," the Vatican said.
Pope Benedict XVI is "deeply disturbed and distressed" by a recent report showing the Irish Catholic Church covered up child sex abuse by clergy for decades, the Vatican said Friday.
Music from late rapper Tupac Shakur has been included as part of the Vatican's official MySpace Music playlist.
A dispute over abortion between the only remaining Kennedy in Congress and his Roman Catholic bishop has highlighted the political volatility of the issue and the challenge it presents to the nation's Catholics.
Rhode Island's top Roman Catholic leader has asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy to stop taking Communion over his support for abortion rights, the diocese said Sunday.
Pope Benedict XVI is expected to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury on Saturday, the first meeting between the religious leaders since a Catholic overture to disaffected Anglicans that some commentators compared to a hostile takeover on Wall Street.
"I'll take two chili, uh..." a hungry customer stammers at the front of a two-hour-long line. "Chile rellenos," the money-handler trills back in perfect Spanish. This is not a trendy Tex-Mex restaurant; and it's more than 1,000 miles from the Mexican border.
The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church.
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 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.
Shortly before he died from brain cancer, Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI. President Obama delivered the letter to the pontiff during his visit to the Vatican in July.
Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy didn't wear his faith on his sleeve, but those close to him say Catholicism was much more than an ethnic and cultural identity.
Pope Benedict XVI had surgery on his right wrist Friday after he broke it in a fall, the Vatican said.
U.S. President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI discussed current affairs, the Catholic Church's teachings and abortion as they met for the first time Friday, according to the White House and the Vatican.
Scientific tests prove bones housed in the Basilica of St. Paul in Rome are those of the apostle St. Paul himself, according to Pope Benedict XVI.
Father Alberto Cutie, an internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, was married this week in Miami, Florida.
The devout actor still goes to church - but forgoes Communion
Father Alberto Cutie, an internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, is joining the Episcopal Church to be with the woman he loves, he said Thursday.
Unregistered churches are attracting millions of worshippers in China, exposing an enduring rift between the government and the Vatican.
It's an issue that simply won't go away. In spite of signals from the Vatican discouraging even discussions of obligatory celibacy for Catholic priests, the almost 1,000-year-old rule is under the microscope. And it will be for decades to come. Here's why.
Does Antimatter really matter? And other burning questions
Pope Benedict XVI completed his eight-day tour of the Holy Land on Friday with an exhortation to both Israelis and Palestinians to work through their decades-old conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday to use his moral authority to thwart anti-Semitic sentiment and hatred toward Israel, especially by Iran.
Three years ago, the film based on Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" was the focus of protest and controversy, with a Vatican archbishop calling for a boycott and Catholics at many levels refuting plot points.
With his visit already bogged down in historical disputes, the pope's message of peace in Gaza was interrupted Monday by an impromptu speaker who fueled the longtime resentment between Palestinians and Israelis.
There is an assumption that the visit to the Middle East by Pope Benedict XVI will be a profound event. However, no one seems to be asking why there is such an expectation.
As he arrives in Israel, the focus for Pope Benedict XVI shifts from Catholic/Muslim ties, which were at the heart of his three-day visit to Jordan, to relations with Judaism.
For more than 20 years, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican's top doctrinal czar, was the intellectual architect of the papacy of John Paul II.
On the second day of his visit to the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI stressed the need for harmony and unity between Christians and Muslims.
Pope Benedict XVI arrived Friday in Amman, Jordan, for a weeklong visit to the Middle East that he hopes will help "foster good relations between Christians and Muslims."
Pope Benedict XVI will leave for a weeklong tour of the Middle East Friday morning, the first papal visit to some of Christianity's most holy places since Pope John Paul II made the pilgrimage in 2000.
Prince Charles visited the Vatican on Monday for his first meeting with a pope since his 1996 divorce from Princess Diana.
He built his own traditionalist Catholic church in L.A. How will faith affect his divorce?
Critics took to the social networking site Facebook to voice their fury over Pope Benedict's remark that condoms do not prevent HIV.
Along the Rust Belt and in cities dotting the Northeast and Upper Midwest, Catholic communities are mourning the loss of parishes. It's a five-year trend of sweeping church closures that most recently hit Cleveland, Ohio.
An estimated 1 million people turned out to hear Pope Benedict XVI preach a Mass in Angola on Sunday, the last major event of his first trip to Africa.
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.
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.
Pope Benedict XVI refused Wednesday to soften the Vatican's ban on condom use as he arrived in Africa for his first visit to the continent as pope.
The African-American religious community deserves considerable praise for taking leadership of the civil rights movement during the first half of the 20th century.
The pope has admitted making mistakes over the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, saying the church will make much greater use of the Internet in the future to help avoid such controversies.
Pope Benedict XVI will not visit Israel's Holocaust museum when he makes his first trip to the region as pope in May, though he will visit a memorial that is part of the site, his ambassador to Israel said Tuesday.
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories May 8-15, he announced Sunday.
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.
The Catholic bishop who caused outrage for denying the Nazis had systematically murdered millions of Jews in the Holocaust apologized Thursday for his statements.
A British Roman Catholic bishop who was ordered to leave Argentina because of his inflammatory comments about the Holocaust has returned home.
A Catholic bishop who was ordered to leave Argentina because of his inflammatory comments about the Holocaust left the country Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan will become the new archbishop of New York, the Vatican announced Monday.
Bishop Richard Williamson, who last month denied the existence of the Holocaust in an interview with Swedish television, was ordered Thursday to leave Argentina within 10 days, the Ministry of Interior said.
Pope Benedict XVI met Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, at the Vatican on Wednesday, both sides said in statements -- but that seems to be all they agree on.
The gray-haired bishop speaks haltingly at first, choosing his words with care. He pauses, stumbles, repeats himself, underlines words vocally for emphasis. But then he warms to his topic, and the words begin to flow freely.
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Israel in May, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Sunday.
Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday the Catholic Church is "profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism."
A German court Monday refused to intervene in the case of Bishop Richard Williamson, who is facing prosecution for denying the Holocaust -- a crime in Germany.
A Holocaust denier Pope Benedict XVI welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church last month has been removed from his position as head of a seminary in Argentina.
Germany's Catholic bishops are calling for the expulsion of a bishop, recently brought back into the church by Pope Benedict XVI, after new reports that Richard Williamson denies the Holocaust.
The Vatican says it has ordered a controversial bishop who denies the Holocaust to "distance himself" from his views "in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI firmly reject denial of the Holocaust, a week and a half after the Vatican rehabilitated a bishop who denied the Nazis had intentionally murdered 6 million Jews.
The Russian Orthodox Church enthroned a new leader Sunday at Moscow's spectacular Christ the Savior Cathedral in a ceremony attended by Russian leaders and Christian delegations from around the world.
A bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers apologized Friday that his remarks caused "distress" for the pope.
Federal prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether leaders of the Los Angeles archdiocese committed fraud by failing to properly deal with charges of priests molesting children, two law-enforcement sources told CNN.
Russian Orthodox Church leaders Tuesday selected Metropolitan Kirill, a 62-year-old modernizer, to be the next head of the church.
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.
Pope Benedict XVI launched his own channel on YouTube Friday in an effort to use new technology to reach a younger audience.
Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to homosexual behavior and warned that humanity could destroy itself.
Thousands of Cubans, including President Raul Castro and Communist Party leaders, flocked to a Catholic ceremony on Saturday putting a 19th century monk on the path to sainthood.
When John Lennon remarked in 1966 that the Beatles were then "more popular than Jesus" his comments prompted outrage in the United States. But this weekend the Vatican's newspaper paid tribute to the band on the 40th anniversary of the release of the "White Album" in an article interpreted by some as a papal pardon for Lennon.
While not playing down differences, the Pope is as keen as many Muslim scholars to promote mutual understanding rather than enmity
As thousands express their anger at the Camorra's threat to a young writer, the Pope chooses to say nothing
For decades, Roe v. Wade divided Catholics from their Democratic leanings. But that may all be changing
As Pope Benedict XVI announced the ascendance of four new saints, a look back at how the guiding lights of the Catholic faith are identified
The road to sainthood for the Nazi-era Pontiff had been put on hold, but on the holiest of Jewish holy days, the current Pope appears to renew the process
The attempts by Obama's running mate to justify his pro-choice abortion views have prompted criticism from the Catholic bishops. Will this be John Kerry redux?
In France, Benedict reiterates his scholarly meditations on faith and reason, trying to spark interest in a haven of secularism
Once termed "the eldest daughter" of the Catholic Church, France is now emblematic of Rome's loosening hold in the developed world
A smooth-talking Italian businessman who once dated actress Anne Hathaway and claimed to have friends in high places at the Vatican is headed to prison after pleading guilty Wednesday in a Manhattan real estate fraud case
The Vatican says it wants to move the remains of Cardinal John Henry Newman to allow the faithful to pray to him. But gay rights activists see another reason
As the Catholic Church marks a key anniversary of a traditionalist ascendancy, its leader is still keen to grapple with doubters
Conservatives are up in arms over Mexico City legalizing abortion and same-sex unions. But leftist politicians believe the government's social conservatism could be its downfall
Benedict won over many of the country's cynics, even if his anti-materialism message clashed with Sydney's hedonism
Pope Benedict XVI used some of the strongest language yet in his apology for the sexual abuse of children by Australia's Roman Catholic clergy
Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday offered his strongest public statement yet on sex abuse against minors by Roman Catholic priests, apologizing to victims and calling the abuse "evil."
Pope Benedict XVI urged religious leaders of all kinds to unite against those who use faith to divide communities
Forget Abba, Australia hails the octogenarian pontiff like a 21st century rock star, even though he has a very old-school sermon for everyone
Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Sydney to lead hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the Roman Catholic church's youth festival
Pope Benedict XVI began a pilgrimage in Australia Sunday, saying he aims to raise awareness about global warming the crisis of clergy sexual abuse
Benedict XVI's handling of the U.S. priest-pedophile crisis won praise. Now Catholics in other countries want the same. Next stop: Australia
The latest fracture over female bishops in the Church of England could get Rome involved
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