Free Republic

CNA Staff, Jul 5, 2023 / 15:10 pm Pope Francis met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a private audience at the Casa Santa Marta papal residence on Wednesday. Clinton’s delegation included several prominent Americans, including Alex Soros of the Open Society Foundations. Clinton, who now focuses his efforts on philanthropy and public affairs, had visited Albania July 3-4 and received from the Albanian prime minister a public gratitude medal for his support of Albania and for NATO's intervention in the Kosovo War, the news site Euractiv reports. Soros, son of the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, accompanied...

Nader, Khawaja, Clintons, Pope Francis, and Elite Converge in UAE & Africa Welcome to the jungle of elites, criminals, and Pope Francis who all seem to have their eyes set on South Africa, while Russia and China run naval drills off the coast. It’s an interesting intersection of events and individuals. What’s more interesting is the timetable of recently indicted George Nader and Andy Khawaja, along with the Clintons and Pope Francis, that leads to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who also have a big interest in South Africa. With the recent African proverb spoken by Pope Francis, mixed in...

Bomb threats issued against Pope Francis ahead of Chile visit Several Catholic churches were attacked in Santiago de Chile during the early hours of Friday, days before Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in the Latin American country. These pamphlets were left behind in two of the churches attacked, reading, among other things, “Pope Francis, the next bombs will be in your cassock.” (Credit: Twitter, Claudio Mancilla.) Share: ROME - Just days before Pope Francis’s scheduled arrival in Santiago on Monday, three incendiary devices exploded in three Catholic churches in Chile’s capital, while a fourth was defused. In one location,...

Pope Francis will make his first visit to the U.S. next week. (snip) Some people are selling tickets to events for as much as $3,000. Monday morning

Although it had been well known for months, Pope Francis made his travel plans official this morning. The pontiff will make his first visit to the US in September 2015 at the World Meeting of Families, part of the lengthy conversation about the pastoral direction of the Catholic Church that officially began with the Extraordinary Synod last month. Rome Reports has the video of the announcement, thankfully with subtitles for the Italian-challenged, which still includes me:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO When I was in Rome last month, this was already assumed to be on the calendar. Vatican officials...

CNN) – President Barack Obama plans to soon meet with Pope Francis for the first time. Secretary of State John Kerry said the President was “looking forward” to visiting the popular new leader of the Roman Catholic Church at the Vatican. Kerry did not say when the trip would take place.

NICOSIA // Pope Benedict XVI on Friday will become the first pontiff to visit Cyprus, home to tiny, centuries-old Maronite and Roman Catholic communities and boosted in recent years by migrant workers mostly from the Philippines and Sri Lanka. All are ecstatic. “I am speechless. I wish I can touch him, I can hug him,” said Scarlet Tugbo, 38, a Filipina. The Pope was invited by the president, Demetris Christofias, and Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the head of the island’s independent Orthodox Church. The visit gives Cyprus, a predominantly Orthodox Christian country, the opportunity to bask in the international limelight....

When Pope Benedict visits this country next year, he is expected to stay at Buckingham Palace as a guest of the Queen. The warmth of her welcome will come as no surprise to the Pontiff, if senior sources at the Vatican are to be believed. According to informants quoted in The Catholic Herald, the Queen has "grown increasingly sympathetic" to the Catholic Church over the years while being "appalled", along with the Prince of Wales, at developments in the Church of England. The usually well-informed newspaper adds that the Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the C of E,...

Pope To Open Africa Synod In Rome By David Willey BBC News, Rome The pope drew huge crowds during his visit to Angola in March Pope Benedict is to open a three-week gathering of African bishops with a Mass in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The Synod on Africa is aimed at discussing the continent's social and economic problems. The Catholic Church is growing faster in Africa than in any other part of the world, nearly trebling in size to 150 million followers over 30 years. It will be the second synod of bishops organised at the Vatican to be...

On the Trip to the Czech Republic "A People and a Church With Profound Historical and Religious Roots" VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address during today's general audience held in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, As is the custom following international apostolic journeys, I shall take advantage of the general audience to speak about the pilgrimage I made these past days to the Czech Republic. I do this first of all as an act of thanksgiving to God, who enabled me to make this visit and who...

A note from a reader in the Czech Republic: I come from the Czech republic and I am quite frustrated that the pope`s visit gets such a negative response in the English blogs – or no response at all… In reality, it was fantastic! There was a lot of symbolism which foreigners do not understand. For example: The first place he went (at his own request), the church of Our Lady of Victory, it is THE church – the symbol of recatholisation of the country. In the year 1620 catholics defeated protestants and this particular church in Praha got...

Thousands of believers flocked to the Czech Republic's second largest city Brno in south Moravia on Sunday to greet Pope Benedict XVI and attend a mass he celebrated out in the open. A region with the highest concentration of believers in the largely secular Czech Republic, Brno was a key stage on the pope's visit and pilgrims came from near and far to get a glimpse of him – some arriving well before daybreak to get a good vantage point. Jan Richter attended the mass in Brno and reported on the atmosphere there in the course of the morning. Pope...

Pope Benedict XVI sought to reach out to the heavily secular people of the Czech Republic on Saturday, decrying the "wounds" left by atheistic communism and urging them to rediscover their Christian roots. ...Benedict said Christianity has an "irreplaceable role" to play in their lives. The Czech Republic is one of the most secular countries in Europe, with nearly half the country professing to be non-believers.... Vatican organizers are hoping for a crowd of up to 200,000 people for the pope's Sunday Mass in Brno, in the Catholic heartland of the Czech Republic.... The [papal vespers] service was held in...

Spider Bugs the Pope in Prague [See URL Video] A spider appeared on Pope Benedict's robes as he addressed politicians and diplomats in Prague on Saturday, disappearing and appearing again.

In pictures: Pope's Czech visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8276373.stm

Pope Benedict XVI gave President Barack Obama a Vatican document on bioethics, he was trying to be clear with him about church teaching and open a path to further dialogue, the Vatican spokesman said. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the spokesman, told reporters after the meeting between the pope and the president that, in giving Obama the document July 10, "the intention was not to be divisive or political, but for clarity and objectivity; to say that, for us, this is extremely important." Pope Benedict gave Obama the document "Dignitas Personae" ("The Dignity of a Person"), which was published in December...

The world desperately needs Benedict's model of reconciliation.Jerusalem Most Israelis seem to agree that the pope's just concluded trip to Israel wasn't a raving success. Far from healing wounds, his address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum garnered harsh criticism for failing to adequately address the horrors memorialized there. I see the visit in a much more positive light.

NAZARETH, Israel, May 14 -- A newly erected concrete spire sliced high into the air over an altar spread beneath, turning a dusty amphitheater here in northern Israel into a church foNational flags and ecumenical banners stood out in the breeze, and quavering Arabic melodies alternated with the sounds of English and Latin. Pope Benedict XVI traveled to the boyhood home of Jesus on Thursday to celebrate the final Mass of his eight-day trip to the Middle East. The ceremony served as a boisterous send-off for the 82-year-old pontiff, who returns to Rome on Friday. "Viva al baba!" the crowd...

In an action that spoke far louder than words, Pope Benedict yesterday walked out of an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem after the chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority launched into an anti-Israeli diatribe. The pontiff, on his first day in Jerusalem, did not realize at first that Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, speaking in Arabic, was condemning the "crimes of the Jewish state" and accusing Israel of having "slaughtered women, children and senior citizens." But as soon as he was told the nature of the sheikh's tirade, he stood and left the meeting, which took place at Notre Dame church, before...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Vatican had to play down Pope Benedict's teenage membership of the Hitler Youth on Tuesday as Israeli disappointment at a lack of emotion in his remarks on the Holocaust dogged his tour of the Holy Land. The speaker of the Knesset, echoing many of his compatriots, accused the German-born pope of showing detachment on Monday from Jewish suffering under the Nazis. He referred to Benedict as "a German who joined the Hitler Youth and ... Hitler's army." The Vatican spokesman at first flatly denied that Benedict, 82, was ever in the Nazi youth movement. But when...