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So we finally have a starting time. Given the choice among Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week, the assembled cardinals chose to be moderate and pick the date in the middle. I am not boasting when I say that I anticipated this middle-of-the-road move – which my press colleagues here in Rome discounted. It was simply a logical extrapolation: There seems to be an air of caution and moderation in all the events to date. So in many ways, this latest result is the least surprise. There’s still a lot of time between now (Friday evening, as I write)...

From New York’s blogging cardinal archbishop, Timothy Dolan: Every day we each begin with the most effective prayer of all, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In our sessions we pray from the Divine Office, begin each meeting with the ancient prayer to the third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, and we break at lunch with the beautiful words of the Angelus. Wednesday, we cardinals made a Holy Hour of adoration before Jesus, really and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, at the Altar of the Chair in Saint Peter’s Basilica.We’re praying a lot; and,...

With the shorthand "OMG" (oh, my God) becoming a huge cliche, it might be worth taking a look at how Americans are seeing the Almighty these days -- that is if they are looking at all. A recent Gallup poll indicates that just 31 percent of Americans worship publicly on a weekly basis, while 43 percent rarely go to a church, synagogue or mosque. Growing up under the heavy hand of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, it was drummed into me that attending weekly Mass was not an option. It was a must to avoid eternal damnation, which...

Vatican City -- "Ever ancient, ever new": It's hard not to think of St. Augustine's paean to the lord when you're walking past a synod of bishops, on the way up to meet the pope in Rome, as I was one recent morning. I was in Rome to receive, as a representative of the United States and "women of the world," a message first delivered by Pope Paul VI at the closing of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. "Women, you do know how to make truth sweet, tender and accessible; make it your task to bring the spirit of...

A rather unexpected voice just joined the chorus of the liberal media outcry over sex scandals among some Catholic clergymen: none other than Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist and neopagan president. A Neopagan Socialist... Indeed, Mr. Morales, leader of the Movement to Socialism, figured he should teach the Pope how things in the Church ought to be run. For those who may not know, he was inaugurated President of Bolivia in 2006 using indigenous pagan rituals.1 The Bolivian newspaper Los Tiempos, of Cochabamba (6/20/2006), described the ceremony: “Evo Morales assumed political power with a spectacular display of religious rituals alluding to...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, often under fire for political missteps on foreign trips, is heading into a potential diplomatic storm when he visits Cyprus this week, a pilgrimage to a divided island that could anger Turkey and the rest of the Muslim world. Divisions between Greeks and ethnic Turks, splits in the Orthodox Christian community, and concerns over damaged Christian and Muslim houses of worship will be come under scrutiny during Benedict's three-day trip starting Friday. The visit will be a key test of whether the pope has found his diplomatic feet. The pope's linking of Islam to...

In a lengthy address delivered in Washington on June 2, Archbishop Antonio Maria Vegliò, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, discussed various facets of migration to the United States, including immigration, human trafficking, and displacement induced by climate change. Speaking to the Regional Consultation of the American Bishops' Conferences on Migration, Archbishop Vegliò said that “I follow with more than usual interest and admiration the courageous advocacy efforts of the USA Church for the regularization of the approximately 12 million undocumented migrants. Their existence will thus be recognized. However, should this also...

Pope Benedict XVI has sacked two Vatican officials over the readmission of a British Holocaust-denying bishop to the Roman Catholic Church. He also abolished the Vatican department responsible for the lifting of the excommunication of Richard Williamson, who is one of the leaders of the Society of St Pius X. The rehabilitation, in January, threatened to undo decades of work to heal rifts between Catholics and Jews. The German-born Pope was forced to apologise to Jewish leaders and atoned by visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel in May. The incident made Pope Benedict, one of the most admired...

RALEIGH, Nc., Sept. 13 - A new discovery reveals a "mystery" never before seen. Investigative researcher Philip E. Dayvault, of Raleigh, NC, found in 2003 that the famed Sistine Chapel Ceiling fresco, painted by Michelangelo in 1512 and located at the Vatican in Rome, Italy, is also painted in allegory. Although the central panels of the Ceiling, or "historicals", are illustrated for literal interpretation, they also contain unique symbolic expression. Once decoded, Dayvault discovered that this expression graphically depicts the Shroud of Turin, in full and complete order. The Shroud of Turin is the traditional burial cloth of Jesus Christ....

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- With a touch of envy, Pope Benedict XVI told employees of the Vatican Library and the Vatican Secret Archives that he had hoped to retire 10 years ago and spend the rest of his life studying, researching and writing. "At the end of my 70th year of age, I would have liked it very much if the beloved John Paul II would have allowed me to dedicate myself to the study and research of the interesting documents and items you carefully safeguard," the pope told the employees June 25. "The Lord had other plans for me...

Christian minorities are being forced out of Muslim countries, The Associated Press reports, and the mass exodus is particularly noticeable in Bethlehem and throughout the Holy Land – the birthplace of Christianity. Until the rise of Islamofascism, economic necessity drove Palestinian Christians to emigrate to the West. Now it’s not their livelihoods that are at risk, but their lives ... In two weeks, Pope Benedict XVI will go to Turkey for a four-day visit, and will call on Muslim nations to respect the rights of religious minorities living within their borders – or as The Vatican puts, it "reciprocity,” in...

Once upon a time on Planet Earth — before the scourge of AIDS — the subject of condoms rarely came up in polite company. Today, condoms have become the coin of the political realm, while debates break out in the politest of places — from the Vatican to the Senate to the pulpit to the pew. In the past few days, reports from Rome have indicated that the Vatican is considering sanctioning the use of condoms among married couples when one of the partners is infected with AIDS. This move, though not yet a done deal, has been heralded as...

ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome Code: ZE05022001 Date: 2005-02-20 Fatima Visionary's Writings Provide New Insight Church Official Says No Novelties to Be Found COIMBRA, Portugal, FEB. 20, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The texts of Sister Lucia will not reveal more details of the Fatima apparition, but will provide more profound insight into the event. Father Jacinto Farias, president of the Scientific Commission of the Fatima Congress, made a statement shortly after the death last week of the last witness of the Fatima appartions that Sister Lucia's texts constitute a fundamental testimony for the Church. "Sister Lucia's experience is one...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

The pope's disgraceful tribute to Arafat Posted: November 13, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern From the way world leaders reacted to the death of Yasser Arafat, you could be forgiven if you had mistakenly believed that Mother Theresa had died. Kofi Annan, a man whose diplomatic career has been dedicated to friendship with tyrants and contempt for their victims, declared himself "deeply moved" by Arafat's death and ordered the U.N. flag flown at half-mast. This is not all that surprising given that Annan is the same man who overruled U.N. Gen. Romeo Dallaire in April 1994 and ordered him not to...

In an attempt to recoup some of the roughly $215 million allegedly stolen by financier Martin Frankel, insurance commissioners for five states sued the Vatican in federal court in Mississippi, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported. The suit alleges that Mr. Frankel tried to use the Catholic Church as "a front" to acquire insurance companies, and that a former Vatican judge, who has been arrested on criminal charges related to the Frankel case, was the Vatican's agent. The suit also claims that several high-ranking Vatican officials had varying degrees of knowledge about Mr. Frankel's attempts to acquire insurance companies through a...