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VATICAN CITY — Tens of thousands of people clutching candles filled St. Peter's Square on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II's death with a prayer vigil that culminated with a blessing by the current pontiff. Polish flags fluttered in the cool evening breeze, the candles twinkled and a choir sang hymns during the vigil, which ended with the blessing by Benedict XVI at 9:37 p.m. — the moment the Polish pope died a year ago. The scene resembled that before John Paul passing, when pilgrims from around the world prayed beneath his studio apartment windows....

Chennai, April 1: A 22-foot-high bronze statue of Pope John Paul II will be unveiled in Chennai tomorrow. The statue, costing Rs 400,000, has been sculpted by Shihan Hussaini, eminent sculptor and karate expert. The statue would be unveiled on the premises of the Sculpture Mission at Besant Nagar, Chennai, to coincide with the first death anniversary of St John Paul II, tomorrow. Shihan said this would be an event of historical significance as this was the world's first statue of the Pope sculpted soon after his death. The statue was completed and mounted on a pedestal six days after...

RUSSIA'S top-secret military intelligence service dismissed today as "absolutely absurd" accusations made by Italian politicians that Soviet agents were involved in a bid to kill Pope John Paul II. "All affirmations about any involvement of Soviet intelligence services, including the military secret service, in the attempted assassination of the pope are absolutely absurd and have nothing to do with reality," a spokesman for the service was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. The head of an Italian parliamentary commission said earlier today that leaders of the former Soviet Union ordered the pope's assassination, leading to a foiled attempt on...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Police took the man who shot Pope John Paul II back into custody Friday after an appeals court ordered him to return to prison to serve more time for killing a journalist and for other crimes in Turkey. Mehmet Ali Agca did not resist arrest after eight days of freedom, and he was taken to police headquarters in Istanbul, where TV cameras showed him handcuffed and yelling in English, Turkish and Italian. "I declare myself Messiah! I am not the son of God, I am Messiah!" shouted Agca, who has made similar outbursts in the past....

Folks, every now and then something comes out from TV that's a plesant surprise.This time is a movie recently broadcast on the Hallmark channel, entitled A Man Who Became Pope: The Heroic True Story of John Paul II. I recorded it and watched it again to catch some details. Here's my review: The movie is well done, true to life in terms of sets and costumes. This is no amateur production. The principal actors themselves are Polish: Piotr Adamczyk played Karol Wojtyla and Malgorzata Bela played leading lady, a platonic love never consumated. Adamczyk plays a convincing Wojtyla, reacting with...

Freedom is as Freedom Does Deacon Keith A. Fournier © Third Millennium, LLC The great struggle of this hour is being waged - knowingly or unknowingly- over freedom. It is a contest with extraordinary implications. Almost every contemporary concern that we face as Christians can be positioned within this struggle. As Christians, freedom has a specific meaning and it must be viewed within that context. It is a lens through which we are invited by our faith (when fully and properly expounded upon) to view both how we live our lives and how we engage in our mission to this...

Benedict the Builder “Be Not Afraid” By: Deacon Keith Fournier © Third Millennium, LLC . “Habemus Papem”, “We Have a Pope!” the Cardinal announced. Pope Benedict XVI stepped forward onto the balcony overlooking St. Peters Square calling himself “…a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.” The applause was uproarious. The joy filled not only that Square but the hearts of millions throughout the entire world who had prayed for this moment. He continued “… that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In...

I saw this site : www.candleforpope.com, they want to compile a CD with all messages for John Paul two, and send it to every one wich want it, for the cost of the CD and delivery. They experience that for 1 year. ping your people about that.

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43697 Friday, April 8, 2005 Protestant pro-lifer thanks pope, Catholic Church Posted: April 8, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern By Jill Stanek © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com I did not organically grow into a pro-life activist. I came into the movement unexpectedly, a bit disoriented. A first discovery was that most pro-life activists were Catholic. I didn't know Catholics have carried the largest share of the water fighting abortion since it was legalized. More and more Protestants are becoming involved, but the pro-life movement as we know it...

The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian denomination, with at least a billion members. But much of its ritual, history and doctrine remain a mystery to non-Catholics. Why, for example, do Catholics need a pope? Why can't women be ordained as priests? And why is contraception wrong, particularly in the age of AIDS? In an effort to answer those and other questions at the heart of this ancient tradition, we talked with two authorities on Catholicism. [snip] Why can't women be priests, especially since the Gospel stories show women being leaders and teachers in the early church? This is...

NEW YORK, April 8 (UPI) -- The head of a leading Roman Catholic lay group says U.S. leftists are about to unleash an avalanche of invective against the church and its leadership."The storm is about to hit," William Donohue of the Catholic League said in a news release. "For the most part, anti-Catholic bigots and the disaffected dissidents within the Church have been quiet. What they have been waiting for is about to happen: the week between the end of the mourning and the beginning of the conclave is upon us. And that means the left is ready to explode."...

April 07, 2005, 10:43 a.m. The Rearguard Pope One man vs. a posthuman tsunami. I am not a Roman Catholic. In fact, I was raised in the old English tradition to think of the Roman Church as a sinister continental conspiracy — hatchet-faced Jesuits in purple robes, lurking in dark corridors, muttering subversion in Latin — to deprive honest Englishmen of their liberties. A few years’ acquaintance with the world showed me the absurdity of all that. Philip II of Spain has been dead for a very long time, and the great enemies of liberty in our own age have...

French flag tribute to Pope sparks left-wing anger 04 Apr 2005 19:38:11 GMT Source: Reuters By Jon Boyle PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) - Politicians in secular France squabbled over whether the government had been right to order flags lowered on public buildings in a sign of respect for Pope John Paul. Socialist senator Jean-Luc Melenchon and Yves Contassot, a senior Green party member on the Paris City Council, said the government had abused its powers on Monday by ordering the official tribute to the Pope, who died on Saturday. The Unsa union said the government was guilty of double standards...

The world is mourning the passing of Pope John Paul II and is simultaneously celebrating his life and his accomplishments. Let us not forget, however, that on this same day, several hours prior to the Pontiff's death, Terri Schiavo's body was cremated at an undisclosed location in Florida. On Saturday, Schiavo's body was cremated, and her husband, defying the wishes of her parents, said he plans to bury the ashes in a family plot in her home state of Pennsylvania. The cremation happened at 9 a.m. at a National Cremation Society facility, according to Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos. He...

I have set up a memorial for the Pope at http://rememberedbyus.com/PopeJohnPaulII/Please visit and light a candle and leave a personal message. My first memorial was for Ronald Reagan http://rememberedbyus.com/RonaldReagan/ and Freepers and others have lit almost 5000 candles for the Gipper. I hope that you will give the same level of response for Pope John Paul. I thank you in advance for your visit.

<p>"The Pilgrim Pope" - Since Thursday, March 31 and the announcement of the Pope?s critical condition, high fever, and urinary tract infection, and subsequent septic shock there has been a constant vigil of the faithful while media coverage has been continually providing updates along with stories, and historical information on this holiest of holy men.</p>

7:30 a.m. Holy Mass was celebrated in presence of the Pope. His Holiness' condition has remained basically the same, some loss of consciousness. Not in a coma, but fades in and out of alertness. Spokesperson related Pope's words for the young people. "I have looked for you, now you have come to me. Now I thank you." Other close members of the Pope's immediate staff come and go into the Pope's room. Per Mr. Navaro (sp?)Next announcement at approx. 5:30 p.m., unless there is something otherwise to communicate.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - 0401italy-vigil Pope John Paul II was near death as dawn broke Saturday, his breathing shallow and his heart and kidneys failing, the Vatican said. Millions of faithful around the world paid homage, many weeping as they knelt with bowed heads, others carrying candles in prayer for the 84-year-old pontiff. The pope "is on the verge of death," Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican's health care office, told the Mexican television network Televisa. "I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope." Addressing the crowd at St. Peter's Square, where...

VATICAN CITY (AP) - 0401pope-health The Vatican press office is notoriously strict about its closing times, turning off the lights and kicking reporters out at 3 p.m. sharp, even if they're typing urgent news. So it was a remarkable development when papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced Friday that the office would stay open overnight. With the world's attention focused on Pope John Paul II in an age of instant global communications, procedure at the Vatican swiftly changed. About two dozen satellite trucks flanked Via della Concilazione, the main boulevard leading to St. Peter's Square, as media outlets from around the...

Pope tells of God guiding bullet and saving his life The Pope has for the first time described publicly the moments after he was shot in 1981, saying he was fearful and in pain but had a "strange feeling of confidence" he would live. He said his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, "understood that above his power ... there is a greater power". The Associated Press reported that in Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums, the pontiff's soon to be released book, the Pope remembered his rush to hospital but did not recall much after he arrived because "I was...