Pope Benedict has called for delegates attending the UN conference for revising the Kyoto deal to craft a credible deal to cut greenhouse gases. Benedict, dubbed the ‘green pope’ for his environmental concerns, launched his appeal on Sunday during his regular Angelus message. He said the deal needs to take into account the poor and future generations. Read more
Pope Benedict XVI insisted on Saturday that all of society’s institutions and not just the Catholic church must be held to “exacting” standards in their response to sex abuse of children, and defended the church’s efforts to confront the problem.
Benedict acknowledged in remarks to visiting U.S. bishops during an audience at the Vatican that pedophilia was a “scourge” for society, and that decades of scandals over clergy abusing children had left Catholics in the United States bewildered.
Read the article...An official of a U.S. group advocating for victims of clergy abuse lamented that Benedict, with his remarks, was setting a “terrible example” for bishops.
“No public figure talks more about child safety but does little to actually make children safer than Pope Benedict,” David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.
“The pope would have us believe that this crisis is about sex abuse. It isn’t. It is about covering up sex abuse,” Clohessy said. “And while child sex crimes happen in every institution, in no institution are they ignored or concealed as consistently as in the Catholic church.”
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The backlash over Benetton’s ad campaign featuring the Pope and other world leaders continues to grow. On Friday, the Vatican announced it will be taking legal action against Benetton after the company displayed a fake photo of the pope kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips, and Benetton ceded. Protesting the use of US President, Read more
Pope Benedict XVI, the iPad Pope, is to use an iPad 2 to light world’s largest electronic Christmas tree in the Italian town of Gubbio. The City of Gubbio and the Diocese of Gubbio announced that the pope would not have to leave his apartment in the Vatican City to light the tree. The tree-lighting Read more
An advertising campaign using a fake image of Pope Benedict kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips has been pulled after protests from the Vatican. The “Unhate” campaign, sponsored by the Benetton clothing company, was aimed at fostering tolerance and ‘global love.’ Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi denounced the ad as ‘false’, and an Read more
Pope Benedict XVI met with participants of the International Conference “Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture”, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Culture. In his address, the Holy Father spoke about the “truly remarkable contributions” science can make to promoting and safeguarding human dignity. At the same time, he warned that scientists must be attentive to ethical concerns in pursuing their research, so that the inviolable dignity of each human being is never compromised.
Read the article...The papal health watch is underway – again. Pope Benedict XVI has reached the age John Paul II was at his death in April 2005, and every stumble or step with a cane is watched for signs of impending doom.
TotalCatholic.com picked up word from Vaticanistas that the pope has “arthrosis.”
Long travel is reportedly now a problem for the ageing Pontiff, who is using a mobile platform to move around at official outdoor Vatican functions.
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Monday evening in the Vatican Basilica, Pope Benedict presided at Vespers for the opening of the academic year in pontifical universities. His homily focused on priestly ministry. The Pope then went on to identify three preconditions for a priest’s life to ensure its conformity to Christ: “the aspiration to collaborate with Jesus in spreading the Read more
The saint whose story inspires me the most is Blessed Pope John XXIII. Born into a peasant family, one of 13 children, he wore hand-me-down clothes until he was in gradate school. He was unabashedly human. He smoked cigarettes, drank wine and enjoyed eating. He was elected pope at the age of 77 in 1958 Read more