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Madrid - Pope Benedict XVI warned in a speech to more than one million pilgrims in Madrid that marriage is between a man and a woman and cannot be dissolved... "The Lord calls many people to marriage, in which a man and a woman, in becoming one flesh, find fulfilment in a profound life of communion," he told the young pilgrims. A Vatican spokesman said on Sunday as many as 1.5 million pilgrims had gathered to hear the pope. Marriage was a project for true love, deepened by sharing joys and sorrows, and marked by "complete self-giving", said the pope....

Pope Benedict XVI has urged Catholics to read the Bible while on vacation, particularly the lesser known books of sacred scripture."This seems to be a good thing to do on the holidays: take a book of the Bible, so you have some relaxation and, at the same time, enter into the great expanse of ​​the Word of God and deepen our contact with the Eternal," said the Pope in his Wednesday General Audience address at his holiday residence of Castle Gandolfo, 15 miles south of Rome, Aug. 3. Pope Benedict noted how "each of us needs time and space...

Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices. Pope Benedict will issue his findings on Luther (1483-1546) in September after discussing him at his annual seminar of 40 fellow theologians — known as the Ratzinger Schülerkreis — at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence. According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic. Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help...

Vatican CITY Sunday, 17 April. This afternoon I took a room at Casa Santa Marta. Setting down my bags, I tried to open the shades, as the room was dark, but it was impossible. One of my brothers had the same problem, and asked for help from the sisters in charge. He thought it was a technical problem. The sisters explained that the blinds had been sealed shut. Seclusion of the Conclave….A new experience for nearly all of us: out of 115 cardinals, only two had previously participated in the election of a pope....  With these words begin the “secret...

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...

Wracked with Catholic guilt every time you access Facebook? Worry no longer — the Pope approves. In a message entitled “Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age,” Pope Benedict XVI gave social networking his blessing, but warned that it cannot replace real human contact. The proclamation, created for the Catholic Church’s World Day of Communications, noted, “I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible.” The pontiff encouraged social networkers to be open and honest in their communications,...

Religious dialogue is worthwhile endeavor. In particular, Christians and Muslims should engage one another. While miracles are unlikely to result, greater familiarity may reduce unintended misunderstanding and insult. However, any dialogue must be based on truth. Including the pervasive Islamic persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities. Unfortunately, truth apparently is not a concern of the Muslim side of one well-publicized engagement process with Catholics. The al-Azhar Islamic Research Council, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, held an emergency meeting and decided to suspend its bi-annual meetings with the Vatican. The reason: "repeatedly insulting remarks issued by the Vatican...

As efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage” proceed in the United States and countries around the world, Pope Benedict issued strong remarks on Jan. 14, saying that gay “marriage” perverts the “essence and goal of the family.” Addressing officials from the city of Rome and the Italian region of Lazio, Pope Benedict said that legislation and policies that promote same-sex unions end up “penalizing” heterosexual couples, “who, not without effort, seek to maintain stable emotional ties which are juridically guaranteed and publicly recognized.” “To this end,” he stressed, “the various components of society must agree on the objectives of education, in...

Miguel Diaz, the US ambassador to the Holy See, gave an interview to Vatican Radio after Pope Benedict’s address about the state of the world in which he claimed that faith groups in the US did not have a problem with intolerant  secularism.In response to Pope Benedict’s  warning against the marginalisation of religion in Western society in the name of a false pluralism Ambassador Diaz said:‘“One of the great treasures of American society has been religious tolerance, its at the heart of what it is to be American. We do not have this kind of radical secularism that dismisses the positive...

POPE Benedict XVI has urged parents to use proper Christian names when naming their children.The Pope was believed to be speaking out against the trend of copying obscure celebrity baby names.Several Italian celebrities have fallen foul of religious tradition, most notably Formula One boss Flavio Briatore, whose son is called Falco, meaning Falcon.Christian names are an “indelible sign from the Holy Spirit” that help protect family life, the Pope said.Theologian Gianni Gennari said the Pope was “simply asking for seriousness when it comes to baptism”.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said on Thursday. "The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe," Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star. "Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/12/ground-zero-mosque-sarah-palin-odonnell-witch/1

Larry has a problem with the new priest, and gets a lesson in Liturgical history by Sarah. Here's the link to the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6khnt7DXOlY

The ageing actor Peter O'Toole is supposed to have said that his "idea of Paradise is walking from one smoke-filled room into another smoke-filled room and my only exercise is walking behind the coffins of dead friends who took exercise". In an interview released in book form today, Pope Benedict (83) says that he doesn't use the exercise bike that was set up in the Vatican for him by his former physician. "I don't get to it at all -- and don't need it at the moment, thank God," says the Pope. Asked if he thinks like Winston Churchill: "No...

Here is what the New York Times reported to its readers on November 21: “Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS . . . .” No, the pope did not say that in his new book, Light of the World, to which I had the honor of contributing a foreword. Here is what the pope actually wrote, answering two questions from German journalist Peter Seewald: Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on Aids once again became...

In a break with his traditional teaching, Pope Benedict XVI has said the use of condoms is acceptable "in certain cases", in an extended interview to be published this week. After holding firm during his papacy to the Vatican's blanket ban on the use of contraceptives, Benedict's surprise comments will shock conservatives in the Catholic church while finding favour with senior Vatican figures who are pushing for a new line on the issue as HIV ravages Africa. The comments were made in a book-length interview with a German journalist, Peter Seewald. In the case of a male prostitute, says Benedict,...

November 9 marked the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet if the open-borders Europe of the Schengen agreement is no longer divided by concrete walls, barbed-wire fences, and sandy death-traps, 21st-century Europe remains deeply divided nonetheless. Evidence of the depth and nature of that division was plentiful before and during the recent anniversary. On the night of November 9 (which is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938 and the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923), Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian president of the European Union Council (and thus, by some reckonings, “president of Europe”), spoke in...

Bishops summoned to the Vatican to discuss the flight of Christians from the Middle East have blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for spurring much of the exodus and warned that the consequences could be devastating for the birthplace of Christianity. Some bishops have singled out the emergence of fanatical Islam for the flight. But others have directly or indirectly accused Israel of discriminating against Arab Christians and impeding solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, the working document of the two-week synod accused the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories for creating difficulties in everyday life for Palestinian Christians, including their religious...

Video: Muslim demonstrators shouted “Pope Benedict, you will pay, Islam is on its way”, “Sharia is on its way”, “Justice is on its way” (a lot is coming our way, it seems) and threatened that Sharia would be “declared” against all who insult Muhammad. They shouted to the Pope, “Watch your back,” swore that he will “burn in hell” and claimed that he “deserves the death penalty.”