Search

The article discusses Pope Francis I's acknowledgment of efforts to gain influence within the Catholic Church by gay prelates in the Vatican hierarchy as of June 12, 2013. Topics addressed include Francis' focus on addressing corruption within the Vatican, and allegations of blackmail by Vatican officials and clergy during the tenure of Pope Benedict XVI.

The article discusses controversy regarding the conduct of the Catholic Church's Roman Curia as of March 19, 2013, highlighting potential challenges to Pope Francis I's handling of the hierarchy and culture within the Vatican. Topics addressed include the power and influence of the Curia, allegations of its secrecy and corruption, and the conduct of Pope Benedict XVI.

The article reports on the papal election in Rome in March 2013. It mentions that the secret voting for the selection of the pope will begin at the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City on March 12. It offers descriptions on the lives of several cardinals which include Cardinal Angelo Scola, Cardinal Erdo of Hungary and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York.

The article discusses issues within the Catholic Church following the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. Topics discussed include Benedict's final address to Catholics in Vatican City, criticism of Church governance during Benedict's tenure as Pope, and wiretaps of Church officials authorized by the Vatican.

The article reports on the first 24 hours of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as a pope, wherein he shifted the tone of papacy in the Vatican City.

The article focuses on the move of 115 cardinals to gather together in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City to elect the next pope.

The article reports on the conflict between the news media in Italy and the Vatican city after the leaks of conclave's sessions to the Italian journalists in 2013.

The article reports on the message of Pope Benedict XVI to the parish priests and clergy members of the Diocese of Rome in which he states that he will remain close to the priests even if he remains hidden to the world as he decided to resign from papacy in Vatican City.

The article reports on the use of Pope Benedict XVI of the microblogging website Twitter.com. It mentions that the use of the microblogging website by the Pope is aimed to encourage the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world especially the young people to be closer to the Church. It adds that the Tweets of the Pope will be available in various languages including French, English, German, Italian, and other languages.

The Vatican's doctrinal office on Monday denounced an American nun who taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School for a book that attempted to present a theological rationale for same-sex relationships, masturbation and remarriage after divorce. The Vatican office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the book, ''Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,'' by Sister Margaret A. Farley, was ''not consistent with authentic Catholic theology,'' and should not be used by Roman Catholics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- In an undisclosed location here, the Vatican authorities are busy questioning Paolo Gabriele, the pope's butler, and others in a widening leaks scandal that has made the seat of the Roman Catholic Church appear to be a hornet's nest of back-stabbing and gossip. Across town, in the lobby of a fancy hotel on the Via Veneto, Gianluigi Nuzzi, the investigative reporter whose new book based on some of the leaks has sent the Vatican into a tailspin, was holding court and looking rather pleased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- A mysterious source named Maria. A room furnished with a single chair where sensitive Vatican documents are turned over to an investigative journalist at regular meetings. The arrest of the pope's butler. Perhaps the greatest breach in centuries in the wall of secrecy that surrounds the Vatican. An on-again-off-again scandal that the Italian press has called VatiLeaks burst into the open on Friday with the arrest by Vatican gendarmes of a man, identified in news reports as Paolo Gabriele, the pope's butler, who the Vatican said was in possession of confidential documents and was suspected of leaking private letters, some of which were addressed to Pope Benedict XVI. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has made ''excellent'' progress in addressing a sexual abuse scandal and reporting new abuse cases directly to the Vatican, but would-be priests need better screening and training, according to a summary of a nearly yearlong investigation issued by the Vatican on Tuesday. The summary also noted that there was evidence of ''dissent'' from church teaching among priests, religious and lay people, a ''serious situation'' it said should not be tolerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vatican on Wednesday told a breakaway traditionalist group with which Pope Benedict XVI has taken pains to reconcile that it must accept certain church teachings before being fully brought back into the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican's chief doctrinal officer, Cardinal William J. Levada, met with Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X, which split with Rome to protest the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, Pope John Paul II excommunicated Bishop Fellay after he consecrated bishops without the approval of the Vatican. In 2009, Benedict lifted the excommunication but caused international outrage when it emerged that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, had denied the scope of the Holocaust. In a statement on Wednesday, the Vatican said that the group must accept the terms of a ''doctrinal preamble,'' which it did not make public, before a ''hoped for reconciliation'' could be reached. In the past, the Vatican had said that the group must accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, including its reconciliation with Judaism and other religions, which Bishop Fellay has said the group will not do. In a statement on Wednesday, the Vatican appeared to leave more room for debate, saying Vatican II was grounds for ''legitimate discussion.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- In a strong rebuke to the Irish government, the Vatican said Saturday that it had never discouraged Irish bishops from reporting the sexual abuse of minors to the police and dismissed claims that it had undermined efforts to investigate abuse as ''unfounded.'' The statement was the latest salvo in a tense diplomatic standoff since the Irish government released a report in July accusing the Vatican of encouraging bishops to ignore guidelines requiring them to report abuse cases to civil authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland on Monday, citing reaction to a recent Irish government report that said the Vatican had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sexual abuse to the police. A spokesman for the Vatican said the recall of the nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was a rare move that ''denoted the seriousness of the situation,'' as well the Holy See's ''will to deal with it with objectivity and determination.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican told bishops worldwide on Monday to make fighting sexual abuse of minors by clerics a priority, telling them to create ''clear and coordinated'' procedures by next year and cooperate with law enforcement authorities when required. The directives, detailed in a letter, are among the clearest to emerge from the Vatican since a sexual abuse scandal erupted in Europe last year. But the recommendations are not binding in church law and do not spell out any enforcement procedures or punishments for bishops who have been found to have violated church law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vatican ousted an Australian bishop on Monday who had called on the church to consider ordaining women and married men. In a statement, the Vatican said that it had ''removed from pastoral care'' Bishop William Morris, left, the bishop of Toowoomba, Australia. The statement was particularly strong; normally the Vatican urges bishops to resign and then announces that it has accepted their resignation. Australian media reported that Bishop Morris had recently published an open letter saying that he was being removed for having argued in 2006 that the church should consider ordaining women and married men in order to fight a shortage of priests, prompting Pope Benedict XVI to open an investigation into his diocese. In the letter, Bishop Morris said he that he refused to resign, but would take early retirement because the pope had decided ''that the diocese would be better served by the leadership of a new bishop.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- On a sunny afternoon this week, St. Peter's Square was abuzz with life. Crowds lined up at the metal detectors. Tourists snapped photos. A workman was spraying down the travertine steps to the basilica. And inside, red cloth screens cordoned off a side chapel that will soon draw as many visitors as Michelangelo's Pieta nearby. Starting Sunday, that chapel is where the entombed remains of Pope John Paul II will be on view for public veneration -- after Pope Benedict XVI presides over the biggest spectacle since his own installation in 2005: a beatification Mass that will move his adored predecessor a step closer to sainthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vatican is watching the sex scandal engulfing the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, ''with concern,'' its secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said Thursday, the news agency ANSA reported. The cardinal's remarks are a sign of Mr. Berlusconi's growing political weakness a week after prosecutors began investigating whether he compensated ''a significant number'' of women, including a minor, for sex. The prime minister denies all wrongdoing. According to ANSA, Cardinal Bertone said the Roman Catholic Church urged greater ''morality'' and ''legality'' in public life, especially from those holding public office. His remarks were seen as lending support to centrist politicians who seek to oust Mr. Berlusconi. In a television interview on Wednesday, the minor, Karima el-Mahroug, denied that she had sex with Mr. Berlusconi or asked for money in exchange for her silence, as wiretapped phone conversations published in the Italian news media this week suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials told the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they had serious reservations about the bishops' policy of mandatory reporting of priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities. The document appears to contradict Vatican claims that church leaders in Rome never sought to control the actions of local bishops in abuse cases, and that the Roman Catholic Church did not impede criminal investigations of child abuse suspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- The Vatican on Saturday welcomed the first group of traditionalist Anglicans who plan to convert to Roman Catholicism through a new structure the Vatican created to facilitate such group conversions. The Vatican angered many Anglicans, including the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, when it announced the new structure in October 2009, because it appeared to upend decades of interfaith dialogue by implying that the Roman Catholic Church sought to encourage the conversion of Anglicans, especially those uncomfortable with the Church of England's ordination of women and openly gay priests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI moved his beloved predecessor one step closer to sainthood on Friday, confirming a miracle by John Paul II and setting May 1, the first Sunday after Easter, as the date of his beatification. The designation means he is considered ''blessed'' and can be publicly venerated. Sainthood would follow after the confirmation of one more miracle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- Amid a judicial investigation into its famously secretive bank, the Vatican created its own financial watchdog on Thursday and issued sweeping and tough new laws aimed at meeting international standards against money laundering and terrorist financing. In an apostolic letter dated Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI created a new internal body to make sure the Vatican's disparate financial entities comply with European Union standards of financial transparency. The new law answered implicit and explicit criticism that the Vatican's financial self-regulation has long been too loose, setting stiff penalties -- including jail time and monetary fines -- for any violators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- The Vatican on Tuesday issued its most authoritative clarification on Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks that condoms could sometimes be used for disease prevention, saying that the pope in no way justified their use to prevent pregnancy. The statement appeared to be a sign of the lingering confusion -- and, perhaps, Vatican infighting -- over the remarks. Approved by Benedict himself, it said his words had been ''repeatedly manipulated'' and did not ''signify a change in Catholic moral teaching.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI pushed for ''more rapid and simplified'' procedures to punish errant priests as far back as 1988, when he was the Vatican's chief doctrinal officer, but his request was not met, according to documents released by the Vatican on Wednesday. At the height of the sexual abuse crisis last spring, Benedict's defenders said he had long argued for disciplining priests who had been found guilty of grave misconduct, while other Vatican officials advocated more lenience. The new documentation is the most comprehensive made public to date supporting those claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- In a papacy troubled by communications missteps, Pope Benedict XVI's unprecedented new book of interviews with a German journalist sought to clarify matters by going straight to the source. But ever since the Vatican's official newspaper published highlights on Saturday, the book has created the opposite effect: widespread confusion, most notably over the pope's comments that in select cases, such as those involving male prostitutes, condom use might be a step toward acting responsibly to reduce ''the risk of infection.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican announced on Friday that it was preparing a new set of guidelines to help bishops offer a ''coordinated and efficient'' response to sexual abuse, one that emphasizes protecting children, cooperating with civil authorities and careful selection of future priests. The Vatican did not reveal details of the guidelines or when they would be published, but they appear to be one of the most decisive remedial measures it has taken to tackle a sexual abuse crisis that roared back last spring, challenging its moral authority and underscoring widespread confusion about its own rules for handling abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- Bishops from across the Middle East on Saturday urged Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories so that a two-state solution could be found swiftly. In a final communique at the end of a two-week-long meeting at the Vatican on the plight of Christians in the Middle East, the bishops also urged Israel not to use the Bible ''to wrongly justify injustices,'' apparently referring to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- As an inquiry into its murky finances looked poised to widen, the Vatican swiftly went on the defensive on Thursday, saying that the seizure of $30 million from a Vatican bank account and the judicial investigation of the bank's two top officials were the result of a ''misunderstanding.'' On Tuesday, Italian officials announced an inquiry into the Vatican bank's top officials for having failed to explain adequately the origins of $30 million transferred from one of its accounts in a Rome bank. Magistrates opened the investigation based on an alert from the Bank of Italy, the nation's central bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cardinal long involved in the Vatican's relations with the Anglican Church will not travel with Pope Benedict XVI on his trip to Britain on Thursday, the Vatican said Wednesday. Cardinal Walter Kasper, who retired last summer as the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, caused a stir this week when he told the German magazine Focus that landing at Heathrow Airport was like landing ''in a third world country.'' He also criticized the ''aggressive atheism'' of Britain. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that Cardinal Kasper had withdrawn from the trip for health reasons. ''The interview had nothing to do with it,'' he said. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia. The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- In an effort to rein in the sexual abuse crisis threatening the church, the Vatican is inching toward introducing changes to canon law to make it easier to discipline pedophile priests, Vatican officials say. The changes will codify into canon law exceptions that already allow the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to defrock priests using faster administrative procedures rather than a full ecclesiastical trial. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pope Benedict XVI named a Swiss theologian on Thursday as the new head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, an office responsible for the Vatican's often delicate relations with Eastern Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews. Widely seen as a traditionalist, the theologian, Archbishop Kurt Koch, above, 60, is bishop of Basel and has served as head of the Swiss Bishops Conference. He replaces Cardinal Walter Kasper, 77, who won plaudits as the Vatican's leading promoter of interfaith dialogue and helped defuse tensions between Benedict and Muslims and Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI named a Canadian theologian on Wednesday to head the Vatican's powerful Congregation for Bishops, which evaluates the nomination of bishops and sets the tone for the Catholic Church hierarchy worldwide. It was the most significant personnel change since the sexual abuse scandal that began shaking the church this spring. The theologian, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, 66, the archbishop of Quebec and leader of the Canadian church, succeeds an Italian, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 76, who has directed the congregation since 2000 and has passed the retirement age of 75. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- The Vatican drew aside, for a brief and puzzling moment, the thick veil that covers its internal business. It issued an extraordinary communique on Monday chastising a powerful cardinal who had criticized another powerful cardinal -- proof of a battle inside the Vatican walls that mirrors the anger over sexual abuse raging outside them. In just 357 words, chosen precisely to obscure much meaning, the communique still managed to lay bare disagreements over the Vatican's handling of the sexual abuse crisis; the deep generational divide inside the church; the legacy of the last two popes; and to top it off, a tantalizing whiff of who might just become the next pope and why. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CORRECTION APPENDED ROME -- In a sign of sharply rising tensions between the Vatican and Belgium, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday criticized as ''surprising and deplorable'' a raid on church property last week by Belgian police officers investigating sexual abuse by clerics. In an exceedingly rare personal message and rebuke of a sovereign country, the pontiff also stressed the church's ''autonomy'' to conduct its own investigations and criticized the ''deplorable methods'' of the Belgian police, who detained bishops, confiscated files and even drilled into the tombs of at least one cardinal in the Cathedral of Mechelen, north of Brussels, in a search for documents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- The Vatican expressed ''shock'' on Friday at the raid on Thursday by the Belgian police of church offices in their search for hidden evidence of child sex abuse by priests. It also voiced its ''indignation'' at what it called the ''violation'' of two cardinals' tombs in the search. In a bold and provocative assertion of state over church as anger rises in Europe over abuse by priests, the police not only detained the members of the Belgian Bishops' Conference for nine hours on Thursday while searching for documents related to sex abuse cases, they also drilled into the tombs of two cardinals in the Brussels Cathedral. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- Addressing the sexual abuse crisis from the seat of the Roman Catholic Church before thousands of white-robed priests, Pope Benedict XVI on Friday begged forgiveness, saying the church would do ''everything possible'' to prevent priests from abusing children. ''We, too, insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again,'' Benedict told thousands of priests and the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square for celebrations marking the end of the Vatican's Year of the Priest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

NICOSIA, Cyprus -- A day after Cypriot religious and political leaders lashed out at Turkey, whose troops have occupied northern Cyprus since 1974, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday met briefly with a Muslim religious leader from the Turkish North. The pope exchanged greetings for several minutes with the leader, Sheik Mehmet Nazim Adil, 88, a Sufi, outside the Vatican's embassy to Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday accepted the resignation of a German bishop under investigation for sexual abuse, the latest high-profile resignation since a sexual abuse crisis erupted in the Roman Catholic Church. In a terse statement, the Vatican said the pope had accepted the resignation of Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, who is also a military chaplain for Germany, under a clause in canon law that allows for the dismissal of bishops considered ''unfit'' for service. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- As the sexual abuse crisis continues to unfold in the Roman Catholic Church, with more victims coming forward worldwide and three bishops resigning last week alone, it is clear the issue is more than a passing storm or a problem of papal communications. Instead, the church is undergoing nothing less than an epochal shift: It pits those who hold fast to a more traditional idea of protecting bishops and priests above all against those who call for more openness and accountability. The battle lines are drawn between the church and society at large, which clearly clamors for accountability, and also inside the church itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pope Benedict XVI might offer a mea culpa about the sexual abuse of minors by priests at the culmination of a yearlong celebration of priests at the Vatican in mid-June, a high-ranking Vatican official has said. Cardinal William J. Levada, who oversees sexual abuse cases as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said on ''PBS NewsHour'' that he ''wouldn't be surprised'' if Benedict were to do such a thing. Cardinal Levada, who is American, succeeded the pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect in 2005. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that it was premature to speculate, but that sexual abuse would not be ''central'' to the June meeting. The meeting is evolving into an expected rally in support of the pope. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VALLETTA, Malta -- In his first such encounter since a sexual abuse scandal began to envelop the Catholic Church in recent months, Pope Benedict XVI met privately on Sunday with a small group of victims of sexual abuse by priests, expressing his ''shame and sorrow'' at their plight, the Vatican said. The pope ''was deeply moved by their stories and expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have suffered,'' the Vatican said in a statement after Benedict met with eight Maltese men who said they were molested by priests as youths in a Malta orphanage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- Tensions rose on Wednesday over comments made Monday by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who called homosexuality ''a pathology'' and linked it to pedophilia. The comments came as the Vatican was trying to calm a scandal over sexual abuse by priests. Gay rights and victims' groups protested the comments -- and on Wednesday even the French government weighed in, calling the remarks by Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican's second in command, ''an unacceptable conflation, and one that we condemn.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- The sexual abuse scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church is by far the most tenacious and complex crisis Pope Benedict XVI has faced. And it is a crucial test for a papacy that many Vatican observers say has a deep internal flaw: its management. A shy theologian, Benedict is ''a brilliant teacher and preacher, but not a strong administrator,'' said George Weigel, an expert on the Vatican and a biographer of Pope John Paul II, in an e-mail message. ''That's fine for a pope, so long as he gets a strong administrator (or administrators) to do that side of the job.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- A top Vatican official issued a detailed defense of Pope Benedict XVI's handling of sexual abuse cases and extensively criticized The New York Times's coverage, both in its news and editorial pages, as unfair to the pope and the church. In a rare interview and a 2,400-word statement posted Wednesday on the Vatican Web site, the official, Cardinal William J. Levada, an American who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, praised Pope Benedict for vigorously investigating and prosecuting sexual abuse cases. He said The Times's coverage had been ''deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican has been ramping up its defense of how Pope Benedict XVI and the church have handled a growing sexual abuse scandal. But deflecting criticism has proved challenging for this papacy. Even as the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has said that the crisis has threatened the ''moral credibility'' of the church, he acknowledged in an interview this week that he had not personally discussed the abuse crisis with the pope, a fact he attributed to the structure of the Vatican's communications apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- As Pope Benedict XVI faces growing pressure to address his role in the handling of sexual abuse cases over the years, the Vatican acknowledged on Saturday that its ability to handle the crisis was a crucial test of its ''moral credibility.'' In a note read on Vatican radio on Saturday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, spoke about the recent news media coverage of a widening abuse scandal in Europe, including recentrevelations in The New York Times. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROME -- The Vatican on Friday reaffirmed its position that the future Pope Benedict XVI ''had no knowledge'' of a decision to allow a known pedophile priest to resume pastoral duties when the pope was archbishop in Munich in 1980. In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that an article that appeared in The New York Times on Friday, which said that the future pope had been sent a memorandum relating to the reassignment of the priest, ''contained no new information.'' The Vatican rejected as ''speculation'' any version of events other than the one it originally put forward to explain what it called the pope's ''nonresponsibility'' in the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]