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LOURDES, France, SEPT. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The only thing that separates a saint from a sinner is that a saint looks less at himself and more at Christ and his love, says the Pope. The Pope offered a commentary on the Eucharist on Sunday night at the conclusion of the Eucharistic procession in the prairie at the Marian shrine in Lourdes. The Holy Father visited Lourdes this weekend to participate in the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there. He returned to Rome today."Let us accept; may you accept to offer yourselves to him who has given...

An Italian museum has defied Pope Benedict by refusing to remove a statue of a crucified green frog clutching a beer mug and an egg. The Vatican had condemned the modern art sculpture as blasphemous. The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano voted it was a work of art, however. The board decreed it would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition. The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 metre 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in...

<p>BRESSANONE, Italy - Serenaded by an oompah band and chiming church bells, Pope Benedict XVI ended a two-week vacation in the Italian Alps on Monday and returned to his summer residence in the hills outside Rome.</p> <p>The 81-year-old pontiff looked well rested as he said goodbye from the main window of the seminary in the northeastern town of Bressanone where he was staying.</p>

SYDNEY (AFP) - - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged hundreds of thousands of young Catholics to beat back a "spiritual desert" spreading through the modern world as he closed Catholic World Youth Day in Australia. The pope celebrated an open-air mass in Sydney that organisers said drew 400,000 worshippers in the climax of a week of prayer and pop concerts during which the pontiff made a historic apology for child sex abuse by clergy. In his final mass, the pope said the worshippers' youthful energy helped reinvigorate the church and urged them to become "messengers of love" to counter...

With WYD's grand finale shortly to come -- the climactic closing liturgy at Randwick (vidstreams and Missal) begins at 10am local (2300GMT, 7pm ET Saturday) -- in one of the week's many nods to Australia's indigenous community, topping the stage at the major events has been a popular Aboriginal rendering of the Holy Spirit known as "Marjorie's Bird." Now, with the design about to take on an even bigger visibility as a key element of the specially-designed vestments for tomorrow's liturgy, Marjorie Liddy, the Tiwi islander behind the image (who never painted before seeing its outline in the sky...

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,I give heartfelt thanks to God for this opportunity to meet and pray with all of you who have come here representing various Christian communities in Australia. Grateful for Bishop Forsyth’s and Cardinal Pell’s words of welcome, I joyfully greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus, the "cornerstone" of the "household of God" (Eph 2:19-20). I would like to offer a particular greeting to Cardinal Edward Cassidy, former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who, due to ill health, could not be with us today. I recall with gratitude...

Sydney, Jul 17, 2008 / 12:29 pm (CNA).- Over half a million people gathered at Sydney Harbor on Thursday to welcome Pope Benedict to World Youth Day and listen to his message. The Pontiff challenged the youth to not separate freedom and tolerance from the truth. Analyzing today’s secular culture, Pope Benedict said, “There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives.” The consequence of believing in relativism, the...

THE Pope was to leave his rural retreat by motorcade for central Sydney tonight ahead of his first official appearance tomorrow at World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations. The motorcade carrying Pope Benedict XVI was scheduled to leave the Opus Dei-run retreat at Kenthurst, on Sydney's northwestern outskirts, at 6pm (AEST). The 81-year-old has been resting at the Kenthurst Study Centre since arriving in Sydney from Rome on Sunday. The Pope was to be taken to St Mary's Cathedral House in central Sydney, where he will stay for the remainder of his time in the city. Tomorrow is the Pope's first...

TV Schedule for World Youth Day 2008  Date ET PT GMT Program Name Description Tue 07/15/08 2:00 AM Mon 11 PM 6:00 WORLD YOUTH DAY 2008 ~ OPENING MASS WITH CARDINAL PELL (LIVE) (3 hrs) Presided over by Cardinal George Pell, this Mass formally celebrates the opening of WYD 2008. A much-anticipated feature of the Mass will be the arrival of the WYD Cross and Icon. Tue 07/15/08 12 PM 9 AM 16:00 Encore Tue 07/15/08 9 PM 6 PM 1:00 Encore Wed 07/16/08 12 AM Tues 9 PM 4:00 Encore           Thu 07/17/08 12:30...

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, is to lead his fellow Anglo-Catholics from the Church of England into the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic Herald will reveal this week. Bishop Burnham, one of two "flying bishops" in the province of Canterbury, has made a statement asking Pope Benedict XVI and the English Catholic bishops for "magnanimous gestures" that will allow traditionalists to become Catholics en masse. He is confident that this will happen, following talks in Rome with Cardinal Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Kasper, the Vatican's head of...

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes of seeing communion extended to divorcees like himself have been quashed by Pope Benedict XVI.Newspapers reported on Sunday that while attending a ceremony in Sardinia Mr Berlusconi had asked a bishop when the Church planned to change the rules. But the Pope told a conference in Canada that communion can only be received by those free of major sin. "We have to do everything... to receive [communion] in a pure heart," he said. No changeMr Berlusconi has recently begun a major effort to try and get communion granted to divorced and remarried people...

President Bush may follow in the footsteps of his brother Jeb and convert to Catholicism, several European papers are reporting. In the wake of the president’s visit to see Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Italian newspapers, citing Vatican sources, said Bush was open to the idea of converting to Catholicism. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio referred to such talk about Bush’s possible conversion and stated that “anything is possible, especially for someone reborn like Bush.� Noting that Tony Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office as Britain’s prime minister last year, the paper also stated that “if anything happens,...

George W Bush and Pope Benedict XVI have held an intimate meeting in Rome as rumours mounted in Italy that the president may follow in Tony Blair's footsteps and convert to Catholicism. The two men spoke for half an hour in the 12th century Tower of St John, a private area in the Vatican gardens which is used by the pope for private reflection. The usual protocol for heads-of-state is a meeting in the pope's library in the Apostolic Palace, but a spokesman for the Vatican said Benedict wanted to reward Mr Bush for the "warmth" of his reception at...

George W Bush and Pope Benedict XVI have held an intimate meeting in Rome as rumours mounted in Italy that the president may follow in Tony Blair's footsteps and convert to Catholicism. The two men spoke for half an hour in the 12th century Tower of St John, a private area in the Vatican gardens which is used by the pope for private reflection. The usual protocol for heads-of-state is a meeting in the pope's library in the Apostolic Palace, but a spokesman for the Vatican said Benedict wanted to reward Mr Bush for the "warmth" of his reception at...

From an Associated Press piece titled, "Impact of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to US to be seen" (April 21, 2008): Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit left behind the impression of a compassionate and candid leader who has made a successful transition from professor to pope. But it's uncertain whether the pontiff's six-day pilgrimage, which ended Sunday, will make a lasting imprint on a country he obviously admires. "In the short term, the trip was an enormous success, probably beyond anyone's expectations, including those of the pope himself," said Russell Shaw, a Catholic writer and former spokesman for the U.S. bishops'...

As my good friends know, I lost a daughter to the ravages of alcoholism and a life ruined in her childhood by a child molester. I spent much of my life trying to help, but basically watching helplessly as she suffered and moved from crisis to crisis. As I said at her funeral, a child molester is worse than a murderer; at least when you kill someone they are dead and can’t suffer anymore, and their families have a chance to mourn and then get on with their lives. My child was not molested by a priest, but, because of...

The following is a transcript of Pope Benedict XVI's remarks at ground zero: O God of love, compassion, and healing, look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions, who gather today at this site, the scene of incredible violence and pain. We ask you in your goodness to give eternal light and peace to all who died here -- the heroic first-responders: our fire fighters, police officers, emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel, along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy simply because their work or service brought them here on...

Pope's cat writes purrfect book BY STEPHANIE GASKELL DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, April 20th 2008, 4:00 AM There's one very unusual biography of Pope Benedict - a children's book, supposedly written by his cat."Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat" is a 36-page illustrated book that chronicles the life of Benedict through the words of his cat, Chico. "I'm meeting you in the pages of this book to tell you a story about my very best friend, a wonderful man with whom I've shared so many happy times," Chico says. "I...

Before he was elected to succeed John Paul II, the modern era's most popular pope, the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI earned the nickname "the Rottweiler" for his staunch enforcement of Roman Catholic orthodoxy. But for a pope so steeped in the infallibility of the church, Benedict's visit to America this week will be remembered for his historic reaching out to the victims of the very church he leads — those thousands of children sexually molested by priests in the past five decades. His decision to focus on their pain and the church's betrayal sent a powerful message...

YOU knew he had arrived by the cheer that welled up from the street. It was electric. Suddenly inside the cathedral, where 3,000 people were waiting, it turned quiet and everyone turned. And now the great huge doors of St. Patrick's opened and sunlight poured in, crashed down, and there was the pope, and the crowd - nuns and religious, deacons and priests, meaning a lot of people who actually deserved to be there - sent a wave of applause crashing against the old Gothic dome. He reacted the way we now know Benedict does. Modest, meek, surprised by love,...

...If journalists expected Benedict to take swipes at President Bush's foreign policy there, they could only be disappointed.... There's a reason that yesterday Bush declared with gusto at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington: "His Holiness believes that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man, woman and child on Earth." ...When they stood together on the White House lawn in a majestic welcoming ceremony on Wednesday, it symbolized the growing rapprochement of American evangelical Protestantism and the Catholic Church.... It was West Texas meets Rome; plain-spoken man of faith meets intellectual of great depth; representative of America's awesome...

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - President George W. Bush addressed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast just after 8:30 this morning, in a speech filled with glowing references to Pope Benedict XVI.  "It's not every day you get to be the warm-up act to the Holy Father," began the President jovially, referring to the fact that the guests would soon be viewing a live broadcast of the Pope's remarks to the United Nations. "This has been a joyous week," said the President beaming and eliciting applause. "It's been a joyous time for Catholics - and it wasn't such a bad...

Usually, when you see staunch anti-immigration Reps. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) engaged in conversation, you assume they're talking about one thing: kicking illegal immigrants out of the country. Pope Benedict's embrace of immigrants in the United States has one congressman seeing red. (AP Photo) But Wednesday night, at a birthday reception for Pope Benedict XVI at the Italian Embassy, Tancredo and Bilbray were locked in a heated discussion about something else -- their entourages. (That's how they roll, y'all.) Tancredo, who was raised Catholic but left the church, was with his wife, Jackie, and about nine of...

NEW YORK -- Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, taking center stage of an iconic structure that has been referred to both as a great cathedral and as hallowed ground. Gates will open at 9 a.m. ET, with pre-mass festivities beginning at noon and the formal mass beginning at 2:30 p.m. Tickets have already been distributed through the Archdiocese of New York and its many parishes for the approximately 2 1/2 hour ceremony, and there are no tickets available at Yankee Stadium for the mass.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and U.S. President George W. Bush and his wife Laura prayed together in the White House on Wednesday, the Vatican said. Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said that the "brief prayer" took place after the pope and Bush had finished their private talks in the Oval Office and Laura Bush joined them. "There was a brief prayer for the family (as an institution)," Lombardi said.

Pope Benedict XVI waves from the popemobile as he drives in front of the White House in Washington, April 16, 2008. U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush look on as U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi bows and kisses the ring of Pope Benedict XVI as he is welcomed to the United States at a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, April 16, 2008. At right is U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Paul Pelosi, husband of Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney.

WASHINGTON - All five Roman Catholic justices on the Supreme Court were invited to Wednesday night's splashy White House dinner in honor of Pope Benedict XVI. Republican presidential contender John McCain will be there, too. But Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who had a nationally broadcast debate scheduled Wednesday night, were not invited. About 250 guests were to attend the dinner. Benedict will not be there because he will be attending an evening prayer service with U.S. bishops. The guests include former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball manager Tommy Lasorda, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John...

Pope Benedict has arrived in the U.S. The pontiff's plane, named "Shepherd One", landed at Andrews Air Force Base just before 10 in the morning Hawaii time. The President, first lady, and their daughter Jenna greeted him as he walked out of the plane. It is the first time the president has met a foreign leader at the Maryland base. This is Pope Benedict's first visit to the U.S. as the pontiff. He will be only the second to visit the White House. His trip tomorrow will mark his 81st birthday. He will hold a papal mass in Washington Thursday,...

'Nazi' Pope Runs 'Child-Abusing Cult,' Says HBO's Maher By Fred Lucas CNSNews.com Staff Writer April 15, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - Comments by HBO's Bill Maher insulting the Pope and calling Catholicism a "cult" that promotes "organized pedophilia" have stirred resentment among many American Catholics upset he would say this the week before Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States. The comments were made on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday, Apr. 11. Maher went into a long monologue on his program comparing the Catholic church to a polygamous cult -- the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...

On Friday, President George W. Bush publicly addressed Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States in an interview with EWTN. In addition, Bush also addressed concerns of interest to Catholics such as the position of Christians in Iraq, relations with China, and the creation of a “culture of life.” The president explained the reasons he would meet Pope Benedict’s airplane upon its arrival at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, saying this unprecedented greeting was due to the particular significance of the Pope. "One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a...

NEW YORK (AP) - A theologian recalls the then-cardinal's deep understanding of Protestantism. A former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican was impressed by his interest in all things American. Those who have met Pope Benedict XVI say the nation should expect a man who knows and admires much about the U.S., but also sees a culture in need of moral guidance. Benedict arrives late Tuesday for a six-day visit to Washington and New York filled with high-profile events. He will meet President Bush at the White House, address leaders in Roman Catholic higher education, speak at the U.N., visit ground...

President Dwight D. Eisenhower walks with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican, in this Dec. 6, 1959, file photo. The leader of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in history. That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI's plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner. (AP Photo/Paul Schutzer, File) The leader of the world's Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in...

Not all Catholics are welcoming Pope Benedict XVI with open arms. Gay Catholics and especially gay Catholics associated with DignityUSA will launch formal protests in Washington and New York against Benedict and his "anti-gay stances." Mark Matson of Powell, Ohio, is president of the board of DignityUSA, the nation's largest organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics. "We, along with many Catholics, disagree with the church's official position about teachings on sexual issues," Matson said. "Our particular area of focus is around sexual orientation. "There are lot of faithful Catholics who dissent from the church's teachings on sexuality. For...

THE Pope has decided he will not wear the vestments specially designed for World Youth Day and billed as "chic clergy couture" on the WYD website. The "earthy-red" coloured vestments feature the Southern Cross constellation on the front and an indigenous feature titled "Marjorie's Bird" on the back. The Pope is known to dislike vestment symbols that are not explicitly Christian. He may, though, wear some variation on the vestment design, a WYD spokeswoman said. The snub may be the first of many in the clash of cultures between the liturgically and theologically conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the exuberance...

In case you've missed the countless news articles, blog posts and television segments, the leader of 1.13 billion Catholics is coming to America. When Pope Benedict XVI makes his first trip to the United States April 15-20, with stops in Washington and New York, he will claim one in four Americans as his own. The trip will also be a chance to raise his own profile — 81 percent of Americans said they don't know much or anything about him, according to a recent Marist College poll. Yet 42 percent of Americans polls said they would like to attend one...

In the largest one-day blitz of Stateside appointments this decade, this morning Pope Benedict has named: Bishop Richard Pates, 65, heretofore auxiliary of St Paul and Minneapolis, as bishop of Des Moines; Fr Anthony Taylor, 53, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and vicar for Ministries in the archdiocese of Oklahoma City, as bishop of Little Rock; Msgr James D. Conley, 53, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Wichita (and former official of the Congregation for Bishops) as auxiliary to Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap. of Denver; Fr William Justice, 65, vicar for Clergy of the archdiocese of San Francisco,...

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...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict will pray for the conversion to love "of those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred" when he visits New York's Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. A prayer he will read also commemorates those who died or were injured in the other September 11 attack at the Pentagon and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 hijackers. The pope will visit Ground Zero in lower Manhattan...

Appearing on Morning Joe a couple weeks ago, Rick Stengel was quick to blame the controversy over Rev. Wright's past remarks on "the incredible ignorance of white Americans" about what goes on in black churches. But Stengel wasn't quite so forgiving when it came to the past of the current pontiff. Appearing on today's Morning Joe to discuss Time's cover story on Pope Benedict XVI's impending visit to America, Stengel blithely referred to the Pope as having been the Vatican's "hatchet man" during his years as a cardinal. View video.

The German tabloid Bild splashed its broadsheet with "We Are the Pope" to announce the selection of the Bavarian-born Joseph Ratzinger as the successor to Pope John Paul II in 2005. Three years later, the feel-good headline has turned into a disappointment for many Catholics and Jews. A theological row over the pope's decision to use a rare Latin prayer for Good Friday, which urges Jews to convert to Catholicism, has prompted the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, to sever relations with the Catholic Church. "As long as Pope Benedict does not return to...

Pope risks new rift with Islam as he baptises journalist facing death threats for condemning 'religion of hate' Last updated at 12:19pm on 24th March 2008 The Pope is risking a new rift with Islam after baptising an outspoken newspaper editor who renounced his Muslim faith after condemning it as a "religion of hate". Magdi Allam, a top editor for the Corriere della Sera newspaper, said he believed he will face greater demands for his assassination after he committed the sin of "apostasty", the renunciation of his faith. But the death threats he has already received for his harsh words...

BERLIN (AFP)---Pope Benedict XVI will not change a Latin prayer which calls for the conversion of Jews because it is theologically proper, a top German cardinal said Saturday. The pope "will leave the prayer as it is. From our point of view, it is entirely correct from a theological point of view," Cardinal Walter Kasper told German television channel ARD.    Kasper, chairman of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and a member of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, announced on Tuesday that a delegation of top rabbis would visit the Vatican this week for talks on the...

ROME, FEB. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Jewish representatives have shown their willingness to continue dialogue with the Catholic Church, going beyond interpretations sparked by the new Good Friday prayer to be used by those communities that celebrate the liturgy according to the 1962 missal. The messages, some of them addressed directly to the Holy See, have arisen after strong criticism of the text of this prayer, which asks that the children of the Chosen People, as well as the rest of humanity, can all come to recognize Jesus Christ and his Church. The text replaces another prayer for the Jews, offered...

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- It's the duty of Christians to accompany those who are dying, and no believer should die alone, says Benedict XVI. The Pope said this today upon receiving in audience participants in the international congress of the Pontifical Academy for Life titled "Close by the Incurable Sick Person and the Dying: Scientific and Ethical Aspects." The two-day conference is being held in conjunction with the dicastery's general assembly, which will be held in the Vatican over the coming days. "Death," said the Holy Father, "concludes the experience of earthly life, but through death there opens...

Boulder, CO, Feb 24, 2008 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- George Weigel, Catholic thinker and biographer of Pope John Paul II, delivered a lecture on Thursday on religion and world politics in which he argued that Pope Benedict XVI has provided a unique model for global understanding between Christianity, Western secularism and Islam. In the lecture, Weigel also called on Muslim leaders engaged in inter-religious dialogue to acknowledge and vigorously condemn the specific abuses of human rights and religious freedom found among some Muslim nations. During the lecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, sponsored by the Aquinas Institute for...

PARIS (Reuters) - Rebel Catholic traditionalists who champion the old Latin mass have accused Pope Benedict of caving in to "foreign pressures" by dropping negative comments about Jews from a rare prayer in the Church's official language. The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which was expelled from the Church in 1988, denounced the change in a Good Friday prayer that it said was one of the oldest in Christianity, dating back to the third century. On Feb. 5, the Vatican revised the prayer, removing a reference to Jewish "blindness" over Christ and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove...

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI met Saturday with Kosovo's president, but the Vatican stressed that the audience did not signal any change in its position concerning the ultimate status of the Serbian province. The meeting took place as ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo prepare to declare it independent from Serbia, counting on support from Western countries. Benedict received President Fatmir Sejdiu in a private audience and got a firsthand readout of the situation on the ground, a Vatican statement said. It stressed that the audience with Kosovo's senior leader "does not represent any change in the position of the Holy...

Zeffirelli Brands Mel Gibson's Passion Anti-Semitic; Calls Director “Bloodthirsty”   Thu Feb 26,12:12 PM ET     Godfrey DeenyFashion Wire Daily February 26, 2004 - New York - Franco Zeffirelli, the last person before Mel Gibson (news) to direct a major feature film on the life of Christ and someone who has himself directed the actor as Hamlet, has lambasted Gibson's controversial film The Passion as anti-Semitic.   "They tell me that in America, despite the ban on minors, that mothers absolutely want their children to see the film, in order to understand the suffering Jesus underwent to save...

ROME — Italian film and opera legend Franco Zeffirelli has agreed to become an image consultant to Pope Benedict XVI, the director said in an interview published Saturday. The pope does not have a "happy image," Zeffirelli told La Stampa, adding: "Coming after a pope as telegenic as John Paul II is a difficult task." Benedict, elected in 2005, "comes across coldly, which isn't suited to his surroundings," Zeffirelli said, adding that the pope's wardrobe "should be reviewed." The pope's robes are "too sumptuous and flashy," the 84-year-old director of "Jesus of Nazareth" and "Romeo and Juliet" told the daily...