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State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on Friday that if a request were to "come forward" that the papal election be monitored by an international organization called the Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the U.S. government “would take it very seriously.” Nuland made the remark only after she did some “digging” on the issue because Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee had questioned her at Thursday's briefing about whether the administration believed the papal election had met international standards. At both Thursday’s and Friday’s briefings there was more than a little jocularity in the way Nuland handled Lee’s...

Pope Francis meets with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace on March 15, 2013. Credit: CTV. Rome, Italy, Mar 16, 2013 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Catholic author and scholar George Weigel believes that Pope Francis embodies the type of Catholicism that is needed for the Church to thrive in the modern cultural context. “I think Pope Francis embodies the Church's turn into the Evangelical Catholicism of the future in a profound way,” Weigel told CNA on March 15, just two days into the new papacy. “If he can reform the Curia and turn it into...

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Breaking with tradition, Pope Francis delivered off-the-cuff remarks about God's power to forgive instead of reading from a written speech for the first Sunday window appearance of his papacy. He also spoke only in Italian - beginning with "buon giorno" (Good day) and ending with "buon pranzo" (Have a good lunch) - instead of greeting the faithful in several languages as his last few predecessors had done. His comments and humor delighted a crowd of more than 150,000 in St. Peter's Square, drawing cheers and laughter. But Francis did tweet in English and other languages, saying:...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime. Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 on Saturday that pedophilia was a "disorder" that needed to be treated. "From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It's not a criminal condition, it's an illness," he said. Napier said he knew of at least two priests who became pedophiles after they were abused as children. "Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who...

Pope Francis made the power of God’s mercy his central message this morning as he celebrated Mass at Sant’Anna church in Vatican City and delivered his first Angelus address to pilgrims in St Peter’s Square. During his homily at the local church, Pope Francis said: “Mercy is the Lord’s most powerful message. “If we are like the Pharisee before the altar, who said: ‘Thank you, Lord, for not making me like all the other men, and especially not like that fellow at the door, like that publican’… well, then we do not know the heart of the Lord, and we...

Pope Francis Delivers Message of Mercy to Crowd of 300,000 VATICAN CITY, March 17, 2013 Before an astounding crowd of some 300,000 in and around St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis today delivered his first angelus as pontiff, urging the faithful to be merciful and forgiving. Hours earlier, the humility and spontaneity of the 76-year-old Argentine was on display when he greeted onlookers near the edge of Vatican City. As the pope was entering a mass in St. Anna Parish, he decided to stop and greet a crowd of people awaiting his arrival. Walking up to the crowd, Francis shook hands,...

The Massachusetts Board of Education recently issued formal “guidance” to the state’s public schools, telling them how to implement new laws protecting against gender identity discrimination. The Board of Education insists that schools must not only provide equal access to educational activities programs but also proactively “create a culture” that would make gender-nonconforming and transgender kids “feel safe, supported, and fully included.” The result? Transgender children must be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, if they so choose. Teachers will “work with” other students who object to the invasion of privacy, helping them over...

March 16, 2013, Saturday — Black Shoes“First of all I would say a prayer for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let us all pray together for him, that the Lord bless him and Our Lady protect him.” –Pope Francis, asking all to pray for Emeritus Pope Benedict, during his first public words after his election on March 13, 2013It is now official. Pope Francis, 76, will go to Castel Gandolfo, about 15 miles outside of Rome, to meet Emeritus Pope Benedict, 85, on March 23, next Saturday, one week from today. It will be their first meeting since Benedict renounced...

The selection of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina to be the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church is being seen as a move that will continue to cement Catholic-Jewish relations and perhaps end the debate over the ChurchÂ’s actions during World War II. Bergoglio, 76, who took the name Francis and is the first Jesuit ever to be chosen pope, has publicly called for the opening of the Vatican archives to learn the true role Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust. There have been allegations that Pope Pius XII, who is on track to be canonized by the...

When he said Mass for the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, newly elected Pope Francis I warned these princes of the church against professing what he called “the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.” “Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil,” Francis said, quoting Leon Bloy, a French writer who died in 1917, and who converted from agnosticism to Catholicism. “When we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord, we are worldly: we may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord,”...

The first 48 hours of the pontificate of Pope Francis have given the world a foretaste of what it is going to be like to have a Jesuit priest for the first time in history as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholic believers. Minutes after the election result was declared in the Sistine Chapel, a Vatican official called the Master of Ceremonies offered to the new Pope the traditional papal red cape trimmed with ermine that his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI gladly wore on ceremonial occasions. "No thank you, Monsignore," Pope Francis is reported to have replied. "You...

The Catholic Answers staff was gathered in the small office library, lights dimmed, EWTN feed from St. Peter’s Square projected onto the blank wall. We did our best to break up the nervous wait with jokes and chatter, and with last-minute predictions and side bets. Then, finally, the balcony curtains opened and we all cheered as Cardinal Tauran stepped out to confirm what the smoke and bells had already announced: We had a pope.Then a hush. We strained through our meager Latin to catch the name, but when it came—Bergoglio—the silence persisted. Who? That wasn’t one of the names...

Why believers of all stripes should care about the new head of the Catholic Church.When the new pope is consecrated, he will inherit a troubled global church. Internal scandal and unaddressed external problems pose great risks to the vitality of Catholicism. But the consequences of success or failure are huge for the church universal, the world's 2.1 billion Christians of every denomination. This is more than a butterfly effect. Rome is not Las Vegas—what happens in Rome will not stay within the borders of Vatican City. One consequence of globalization is that the walls that have long divided Catholics from...

Listers, habemus papam Franciscum. The world was stunned and the pundits proved wrong as the Argentinian Jesuit walked out on the Loggia of St. Peter’s. In a soft but strong voice, Pope Francis gave his first words as the Vicar of Christ: Brothers and sisters good evening.You all know that the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother Cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the earth to get him… but here we are. I thank you for the welcome that has come from the diocesan community of Rome.First of all...

A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis has described paedophilia as a psychological illness and not "a criminal condition". The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, said that people who were abused as children and became paedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody "who chooses to do something like that". Cardinal Napier, who was among the 115 cardinals in the conclave at the Vatican that elected Pope Francis earlier this week, called paedophilia a "psychological disorder". He said: "What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and...

Pope Francis speaks to 5,000 journalists at Paul VI Hall. Credit: Estefania Aguirre Vatican City, Mar 16, 2013 / 08:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told thousands of journalists today he loved them and thanked them for their recent work. “I love you so much and I thank you for all that you have done,” Pope Francis told over 5,000 journalists today at Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. “We aren’t called to communicate about ourselves, but on this trinity of truth, goodness and beauty,” he told the journalists at 11:00 a.m. local time. The newly elected Pope from...

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - March 16, AD 2013 8:08 PM MST Here is the full video of Pope Francis' first Mass in the Sistine Chapel. The consecration of the Host happens at 51:47. The consecration of the Chalice happens at 52:32. I cannot believe I am about to type these words. The Pope DID NOT GENUFLECT after either consecration. He did a weird bow thing, but didn't feel the need to bend his knee to God Almighty, physically present in his hands upon the altar. HE. DID. NOT. GENUFLECT. This is absolutely stunning. And unprecedented. Oh yeah, we're in...

Sitting in his workshop in San Telmo, pencil in hand, goldsmith Juan Carlos Pallarols drafts one of his most meaningful works of art: a chalice that will be delivered to “Pope Jorge” on behalf of all Argentines. Pallarols knows that this is not just another piece amongst his many other works that have earned him the reputation of being one of the best goldsmiths in the world. This is special. “It’s a particular gift, it’s for a friend, for a good man, but this is not just a gift coming from me. It comes from the Argentine population,” he said,...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The focus of Pope Francis' papacy began to emerge Saturday as he offered some intimate insights into the conclave that elected him pontiff, describing how he was immediately inspired to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi because he wants to see a church that is "for the poor." His comments provided further evidence that this first Latin American papacy would be one that looks beyond the confines of the church itself to the most disadvantaged, named for a 13th-century friar who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and simplicity and...

Evangelist Luis Palau, who knows and has prayed together with Pope Francis on several occasions, called the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics a friend of evangelicals who is respectful of all sides of Christianity. "I exploded," Palau told oregonlive.com, of his reaction after his son, Kevin Palau, president of the Luis Palau Association, shared the news that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected pope this week. "I just couldn't believe it. In the last election, he was in the running but he told me he felt led by God to remove himself from the...