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VATICAN CITY — The archbishop of the Italian city of Genoa received a bullet in an envelope at his office — the latest threatening message for the prelate, who is leading a campaign against same-sex unions, Vatican Radio said Sunday.The bullet arrived Friday at the office of Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who was recently elected to head the politically influential Italian Bishops Conference, the radio report said. It quoted a Genoa newspaper as saying the envelope also contained a photo of the archbishop with a swastika cut into it.Bodyguards stood a few yards from the altar in Genoa's cathedral Sunday as...

Gillette, Wyo. (AP) -- Leah Vader and Lynne Huskinson, a lesbian couple who got married in Canada last August, sent a letter recently to their state legislator decrying a Wyoming bill that would deny recognition of same-sex marriages. The lawmaker read the letter on the floor of the Legislature. Soon after, the local paper interviewed the couple on Ash Wednesday and ran a story and pictures of them with ash on their foreheads, a mark of their Roman Catholic faith. It wasn't long after that that the couple received a notice from their parish church telling them they have been...

GILLETTE (AP) -- A lesbian couple who were married in Canada have been told they can't receive communion at the church they've attended since 1998, in part because they publicly opposed a bill that would have barred Wyoming from recognizing gay marriages. Leah Vader said she received a letter last week from the Rev. Cliff Jacobson, pastor of St. Matthew's Catholic Church, that read in part, "because of your union and your public advocacy of same-sex unions, that you are unable to receive communion." Vader and Lynne Huskinson have attended St. Matthew's since 1998. Earlier this year, when the Legislature...

LINCOLN, February 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) ­ The Vatican’s second highest juridical authority has rejected the appeal of an American leftist group, Call to Action (CTA), to overturn a decree of excommunication by the bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, who called the group and “anti-Catholic sect”. A letter from the Apostolic Signatura, the Catholic Church’s supreme tribunal and the highest judicial authority after the Pope himself, dismissed the group’s attempt at appeal with a terse message that it had “no competence” to overturn the decree. The Signatura’s letter reiterates a December letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, Giovanni Cardinal Battista Re,...

...in Italy... Vatican, Feb. 16, 2007 (CWNews.com) - With many Italian Catholics expressing support for a legislative proposal that would grant civil-union recognition to same-sex couples, the Vatican newspaper has defended the right of Church leaders to speak out on the issue. L’Osservatore Romano decried the calls from liberal Catholics for an end to public pronouncements from the Italian bishops’ conference. The proposed legislation has a clear impact on public morality, the Vatican newspaper reasoned. “Maybe it is necessary to recall that the things of God and the things of man coincide more often than we recognize,” L’Osservatore Romano added....

VATICAN CITY, February 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today, the Vatican released Pope Benedict XVI's message for  the World Youth Day 2007, which is to be celebrated in all dioceses on Palm Sunday, April 1.  The message focuses on love, and a significant portion is dedicated to preparation for marriage. Rather than assume young people incapable of avoiding premarital relations, the Holy Father challenges youth to remain pure even during a marriage engagement.  "The period of engagement," he said, "very necessary in order to form a couple, is a time of expectation and preparation that needs to be lived in purity...

On Sunday Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the necessity of Catholics to accept the whole of the faith.  "Dear brothers and sisters how necessary it is today at the dawn of the third millennium for the entire Catholic community to proclaim, teach and witness to the entire truth of Catholic faith, doctrine and morals in a unanimous and harmonious manner!," he stressed.His comments came as he spoke of the recently completed abbreviated Catechism known as the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  The Compendium, in addition to proclaiming the church's popular teachings on the necessity of caring for...

Bishop’s forceful letter is "making the rounds." A U.S. Catholic bishop is speaking out against the evils of pornography and his message is making its way around the world.  In a pastoral letter, Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., said pornography is "an attack on the living Temple of God." He further insisted that the images distort people's ability to see one another as a unique and beautiful expression of God’s creation. The Rev. Terry Specht, spokesman for the Diocese of Arlington, said Bishop Loverde’s message is simple, but profound."Christians are people called apart by God to live a life...

A Roman Catholic couple say they’re being driven from the church over the archbishop’s opposition to their same-sex union. After Daniel Poirier and Jack Murphy of Meteghan Centre got married in May, the two 69-year-olds placed an announcement and photograph in The Chronicle Herald. When the notice appeared, the couple’s priest at Stella Maris in Meteghan told them that Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, head of the Halifax archdiocese and administrator of the Yarmouth diocese, which includes Meteghan, had directed that they could no longer receive communion or assume any leadership position in the church. That meant Mr. Poirier could no longer...

A Roman Catholic couple say they’re being driven from the church over the archbishop’s opposition to their same-sex union.After Daniel Poirier and Jack Murphy of Meteghan Centre got married in May, the two 69-year-olds placed an announcement and photograph in The Chronicle Herald.When the notice appeared, the couple’s priest at Stella Maris in Meteghan told them that Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, head of the Halifax archdiocese and administrator of the Yarmouth diocese, which includes Meteghan, had directed that they could no longer receive communion or assume any leadership position in the church.That meant Mr. Poirier could no longer serve as a...

Dec. 7, 2006 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has confirmed an American bishop's decision to excommunicate members of the dissident group Call to Action. Call to Action is "causing damage to the Church of Christ," wrote Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, in a letter to Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. In March 1996, Bishop Bruskewitz had announced the excommunication of all Catholics in his diocese who were members of Call to Action or several other dissident groups which he described as "totally incompatible with the Catholic faith." The Nebraska chapter of...

About 50 people demonstrated outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School Saturday afternoon, calling for greater openness and inclusiveness in the Roman Catholic Church. The event concluded the 10th anniversary conference of Call to Action Nebraska, part of a nationwide organization seeking reforms in the church. In 1996, Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz announced that local Catholics who joined Call to Action would be excommunicated.  Lincoln is the only diocese in the country to impose such sanctions, said Rachel Pokora, president of Nebraska CTA. About half of those participating in Saturday’s “non-violent action” were CTA members from other parts of the...