Vatican

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Vatican Snubs Berlusconi Over Cheeky News Article

Scandal-ridden Italian premier disinvited from pardoning religious ceremony

(Newser) - He may still be beloved by Italian voters, but there’s clearly no love lost between Silvio Berlusconi and the Vatican, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Holy See has disinvited the scandal-ridden Italian premier from a religious service and dinner after a newspaper owned by his brother ran a...

Italy OKs RU-486; Vatican Threatens Excommunications

(Newser) - Italy has legalized the abortion drug RU-486, drawing the ire of the Vatican, which threatened to excommunicate doctors who prescribe the medication and women who take it. A church official said using the pill is "a sin in a moral and juridical sense," but a politician who is...

Pope Plans Christmas Album
 Pope Plans Christmas Album 
Jul 31, 2009 1:45 AM CDT

Pope Plans Christmas Album

(Newser) - Pope Benedict XVI has joined Guns n' Roses and Snoop Dogg on Geffen  records' roster of artists and plans to have an album out in time for Christmas, the Guardian reports. The pontiff won't be crooning holiday standards, however. The album will feature Benedict singing a prayer and reciting litanies...

Racy New Berlusconi Sex Tape Released

(Newser) - A newly released audio tape apparently captures Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a graphic sexual conversation with a female escort, reports the Daily Telegraph. Two voices on the tape discuss orgasm and a just-ended satisfying sexual encounter, with the man recommending that the woman "touch" herself "often....

Pope 'Can't Pray' Thanks to Broken Wrist

(Newser) - Pope Benedict XVI's broken wrist kept him from joining his hands in prayer as he celebrated Mass today, AFP reports. "What pains him the most is to be no longer able to bless with his right hand and to be no longer able to clasp his hands together,"...

Vatican Warms to Wilde
 Vatican 
 Warms 
 to Wilde 
OPINION
Jul 17, 2009 9:38 AM CDT

Vatican Warms to Wilde

Paper praises writer's 'lucid' analysis of his world

(Newser) - The Vatican long regarded Oscar Wilde as a “dissolute homosexual,” but things have changed, writes Richard Owen in the Times of London. A review in the Vatican newspaper of a study on the Irish writer celebrates him as “one of the personalities of the 19th century who...

Vatican Charmed by Potter

(Newser) - Though rarely a fan of wizards and witches, the Vatican has declared the latest Harry Potter film a positive tale of “friendship, altruism, loyalty" that achieves the "correct balance" in depicting teen romance, reports the Guardian. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, opening today, makes clear that...

Obama Promises Pope He'll Work to Cut US Abortions

(Newser) - President Obama told Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that he would make every effort to reduce the number of abortions in the US, according to a Vatican spokesman. Bioethics and life issues were the focus of the men's 40-minute talk yesterday. The pontiff gave the president a booklet explaining the church's...

Obama Brings Pope Letter From Ailing Kennedy

President asks Benedict to pray for ill senator

(Newser) - President Obama delivered a letter from Ted Kennedy to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican today, CNN reports. Obama met with the pontiff for about a half hour before leaving Rome for Ghana. The contents of Kennedy’s letter were personal, an Obama aide said, and “not known to...

Obama, Pope Hold 'Frank' Discussion at First Meeting

(Newser) - President Obama met with Pope Benedict for the first time today at the Vatican, the AP reports. The White House press secretary predicted a “frank discussion. I think that there's a lot that they agree on that they'll get a chance to discuss,” said Robert Gibbs. Though the...

Pope Urges New World Order for Global Economy

(Newser) - Pope Benedict delivers a broad criticism of contemporary capitalism in his latest encyclical, the Washington Post reports. The biggest problem with businesses today is that “they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors,” Benedict writes in the 144-page document. He proposes a radically different economic model in which...

Vatican Steps Up Scrutiny of American Nuns

Nuns fear church heirarchy is seeking to return them to strictly traditional ways

(Newser) - The Vatican has launched two major probes into the lives of America's 60,000 nuns, the New York Times reports. Many nuns have stopped wearing habits, moved out of convents, and found work in academia or political advocacy in the last few decades, and some fear the investigations are part...

Confession Isn't Therapy, Church Warns

Priests told to get tough on sinners instead of providing counseling sessions

(Newser) - The Vatican plans a campaign to remind priests that the confessional isn't a psychiatrist's couch, the Guardian reports. A handbook will be issued to emphasize that sinners are in confession to be given penance, not counseling sessions. The number of Catholics going to confession has slumped in recent years and...

Obama Picks Theology Prof as Vatican Envoy

High-profile Cuban native would be first Hispanic to hold post

(Newser) - President Obama has nominated a Minnesota theologian as his Vatican ambassador, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Miguel Diaz, 45, a Cuban-born professor who would be the first Hispanic US envoy to the Vatican, was an Obama campaign adviser. He was chosen after the Vatican reportedly rejected a series of possible...

Bishops Scorn Obama, but Pope Is a Fan
Bishops Scorn Obama, but Pope Is a Fan
ANALYSIS
May 16, 2009 3:50 PM CDT

Bishops Scorn Obama, but Pope Is a Fan

The Vatican takes softer stance on Notre Dame debate

(Newser) - While conservative Catholics rage over President Obama's upcoming commencement speech at Notre Dame, one man has remained silent: the Holy Father. Indeed, American Catholic leaders and the Pope have staked out dramatically different positions from the Obama administration's, Amy Sullivan observes in Time. Yet the Vatican’s response to the...

John Paul II's Attacker Wants Vatican Baptism

Man who shot pontiff seeks ceremony after prison release

(Newser) - The man who shot Pope John Paul II gets out of prison in January—and when he does, he wants to be baptized at the Vatican, his lawyer says. Over the years, Mehmet Ali Agca has claimed to be the Messiah or Jesus Christ, fueling speculation about his mental health...

Aide Admits Pope's Hitler Youth Past— With Explanation

Played 'no role in his life,' says spokesman

(Newser) - Pope Benedict's chief spokesman baffled many yesterday by insisting that the pontiff had never been in the Hitler Youth group, despite the Pope's own biography saying he was a member, the Los Angeles Times reports. "The Pope was never in the Hitler Youth, never, never, never,'' Father Federico...

Pope Lands in Israel, Calls for Free Palestine

Pontiff steps into controversy immediately upon arrival

(Newser) - Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Israel today and immediately called for the creation of an independent Palestine, reports AP. The pontiff also vowed to "honor the memory" of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Benedict's support for a free Palestine puts him at odds with Prime Minister...

Vatican Stews Over Israel's Last Supper Fight

(Newser) - Israeli-Vatican tensions are expected to heat up yet again during Pope Benedict's visit today as the pontiff presses Catholic claims over a room in Jerusalem believed to be the site of Christ's last supper. The room is in a building that served for centuries as a mosque and is now...

In Jordan, Pope Decries 'Manipulation' of Religion

(Newser) - The top religious adviser to Jordan's king thanked Pope Benedict XVI today for his expression of "regret" after a 2006 speech that many Muslims deemed insulting to Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Benedict told the audience of religious leaders and officials at an Amman mosque that the history of the two...

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