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JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Pope Benedict XVI .... calling for more understanding between Christians and Muslims. He encouraged Christians and Muslims to oppose terrorism. "Muslims and Christians, precisely because of the burden of our common history, so often marked by misunderstanding, must today strive to be known and recognized as worshippers of God, faithful to prayer, eager to uphold and lift by the almighty decrees,"... ...At the mosque, in a meeting with Muslim leaders, he called for a "trilateral dialogue" including the Church to help bring Jews and Muslims together to discuss peace

AMMAN, Jordan, May 9 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed Saturday at the King Hussein Mosque in the Jordanian capital Amman, Vatican officials said. The trip to the mosque, the largest in Jordan, marked the second day of the pope's visit to the Middle East, the BBC reported. Afterwards, Benedict addressed local Muslim leaders, observers said. Earlier in the day he visited Mount Nebo, which, according to the Bible, is where Moses saw the Promised Land before he died. Vatican analysts said the pope is anxious to mend relations with Muslims and Jews on his eight-day sojourn to Israel and...

Jordanian clerics expressed disappointment that Pope Benedict XVI in an address to Muslim leaders on Saturday failed to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam. "We wanted him to clearly apologise," Sheikh Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of the southern city of Karak, told AFP after the pope's address in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque. "What the pope said (in 2006) about the Prophet Mohammed is untrue. Islam did not spread through the power of sword. It's a religion of tolerance and faith," Hussein said.

Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders on Thursday that true religion rejects violence, and he held up peaceful coexistence between Christianity and Islam in Cameroon as "a beacon to other African nations." In Cameroon's capital, a clapping, swaying crowd of 40,000 faithful from Africa's expanding, vibrant Catholic flock later welcomed him to a football stadium where he celebrated Mass. There, he delivered a message of encouragement for Africa and expressed compassion for the children being forced by paramilitaries to fight in some countries. To these children he said: "God loves you, he has not forgotten you." Child soldiers, often kidnapped,...

When Fr Roger Schutz, founder of the ecumenical monastic community at Taizé, in south-east France, attended the April 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II, he received Communion from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This raised a few eyebrows at the time -- Shutz was a Protestant pastor -- and gave rise to speculation that "Brother Roger", as he was always known, had secretly converted to Catholicism. This idea was supported by what subsequently came to light: that Schutz had repeatedly received Eucharistic communion from John Paul II and received the Eucharist every morning at the Catholic Mass in Taizé. The question...

One of the Catholic Church’s most senior theologians, and former mentor to Pope Benedict XVI, has launched a stinging attack on the Vatican. Father Hans Küng, 80, a Swiss priest and professor at Tübingen university said it was a “tragedy” for the Catholic Church that Rome had failed to follow the path of liberalisation set out by the Vatican II council in 1965. In his autobiography, My Fight for Freedom, Fr Küng said he was responsible for Benedict XVI’s appointment as a professor at Tübingen 1966 when he was dean of the Catholic theology faculty. Unusually, Father Küng put...

I’m not sure if the timing has anything to do with Pope Benedict’s U.S. trip, but the schismatic traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X chose this weekend to announce its disappointment in the pontiff and its decision not to seek closer ties to Rome now. SSPX leader Bishop Bernard Fellay wrote in a “Letter to Friends and Benefactors” (here in French) that Benedict had not budged in his support for the Second Vatican Council despite his decision last year to allow wider use of the old Tridentine rite Mass in Latin. “The time for an agreement has not yet come,”...

Now that Benedict has come and gone we are in the thick of media analysis of the meaning of it all. Many folk (Rod Dreher is a notable example) were (as I expected) disappointed because the pope didn't "do something" about bishops who have, to say the least, not particularly distinguished themselves in the Scandal. Dreher wanted a "read them the riot act" moment. Others scattered around the secular and mainstream media talked about Benedict "firing" them and so forth. The pope, as you might expect, addressed the bishops and (as you also might expect given his high degree of...

Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the church's child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands here Thursday. Gates opened at Washington's new sports stadium before dawn so that an expected 48,000 people could trickle through stringent security measures to attend the mass at 10:00 am (1400 GMT). Benedict received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday and met privately with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, before addressing the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church in a speech to US Catholic bishops. Thousands...

WASHINGTON -- Pope Benedict XVI, in a dramatic move likely to alter forever the image of his pontificate, met this afternoon with five victims of clergy sexual abuse from Boston. The private meeting, which was first reported by the Globe this afternoon and has since been confirmed by the Vatican, was brokered by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston.

Washington DC, Apr 17, 2008 / 07:36 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has now raised the topic of the sex abuse scandal three times in the last two days, and on Thursday afternoon, he held a private meetings with a group of sex abuse victims. The director of the Vatican’s Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, told the Associated Press that Pope Benedict and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, “met with a group of five or six victims for about 25 minutes in the chapel of the papal embassy, offering them encouragement and hope.” According to Lombardi, the Holy Father told the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three victims of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the RC Church described an emotional, frank and ultimately hope-filled meeting with Pope Benedict on Thursday. They were part of a small group of people abused by clergy who were asked to share their stories with the pope in a Washington chapel. "They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterwards listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope," said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman. The exchanges were frank and unscripted, according to some of the victims. "I told him that he...

Raymond Arroyo, commenting on the odd choices for some of the music in the liturgy at Nationals Stadium, after listening to an absolutely awful conga version of an offertory hymn (including bongos and a kettle drum) just said that "the music in this liturgy, is out of character for papal masses of late. The music has a sort of amazon flavor to it!" Funny and sad. Update: That mass, musically speaking, was one of the oddest things I have ever seen. It was so multicultural that it ceased to have any culture whatsoever! There were so many different bad songs...

Vatican No. 2 says pope will seek healing from US clergy sex abuse scandal AP POSTED: April 9, 2008     VATICAN CITY (AP) _ Pope Benedict XVI recognizes the damage and pain caused by the clergy sex abuse crisis and will seek to heal wounds during his U.S. trip next week, the Vatican's No. 2 official said Tuesday. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Benedict will deliver a message of "trust and hope" when he meets American clergy at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Benedict "will try to open the path of healing...

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Contrary to what many may think, young people are strongly attracted to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, Pope Benedict XVI told thousands of Spanish youths. The pope urged some 5,000 pilgrims from Youth Mission of Madrid to continue to help their peers discover they are all loved by God and that his is "the only love that never fails and never ends." The pope spoke to the young people packed inside the courtyard of his papal summer residence, south of Rome, Aug. 9. He also greeted thousands of young people who could not fit inside...

Pope Has "Frank" Conversation with Tony Blair Vatican, Jun. 25, 2007 (CWNews.com) - During a June 23 audience with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Pope Benedict XVI some candid criticism of the British leader's term in office. After the Pope's meeting with Blair-- who was accompanied to the Vatican by his wife Cherie and by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster-- the Vatican press office indicated that the conversation had included a "frank discussion of the international situation, including certain particularly delicate questions such as the conflict in the Middle East and the future of the European Union in the...

Rome, Apr. 30, 2007 (CWNews.com) - More than 1 million copies of the new book by Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, have been sold in just 2 weeks. The Italian edition of Jesus of Nazareth has sold 510,000 copies, while the German edition has sold 480,000, and the Polish edition 100,000, the latest figures show. The book went on sale on April 16, the Pope's 80th birthday. The English-language version of the book, to be published by Doubleday, is due to appear on May 15.

[...] Nineteen months after being selected pope, Benedict is transforming the Vatican with a different style and a different stance. Beneath his blunt words and rigid style lies a profound divergence from John Paul's buoyant optimism. Pope Benedict believes that the Roman Catholic Church must stand apart from the world of today rather than embrace it. ohn Paul II was the master of the grand overture -- from praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to kissing a copy of the Quran -- which dissolved tensions with even his harshest foes. For Benedict, the modern age is defined by growing...

Barroso disappointed at lack of EU support for Pope BERLIN (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying on Saturday that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made controversial comments on Islam. "I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said 'naturally the Pope has the right to express his views'," Barroso was quoted as saying to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists," the paper quoted him as saying in a preview...

Pope praises murdered Italian nun for pardoning her killers 24/09/2006 - 12:39:17 Pope Benedict XVI today praised an Italian nun for pardoning her killers as she lay dying from an attack in Somalia that may have been linked to worldwide Muslim anger over his recent remarks about Islam and violence. Benedict spoke to pilgrims at his Castel Gandolfo summer palace where, on Monday, he will meet with ambassadors from predominantly Muslim countries in an effort to defuse tensions arising from a speech he gave on September 12 while on a pilgrimage in Germany. Rosa Sgorbati, an Italian missionary who worked...