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Notre Dame University employed the police to order a group of traditional marriage advocates off its campus late last week. Volunteers with the Tradition Family Property Student Action were given permission by an official campus student group to set up a table, according to TFP director John Ritchie. The police arrived shortly after the group began handing out pro-family literature and told them to “cease and desist.” On its website TFP Student Action claimed: The TFP handout, 10 Reasons Why Same-Sex “Marriage” is Harmful and Must Be Opposed, was being warmly received by students and faculty members alike. However, several...

A Knesset Member said Thursday that Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef told him that the Prime Minister's bureau contacted him and asked to grant halakhic permission for Israel to hand over the Tomb of David to the Vatican. The startling news was revealed by the Knesset Member during a tour of the Tomb of Daid by four MKs – Yoni Chetboun of the Jewish Home, who initiated the tour, Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu), Nissim Ze'ev (Shas), and Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism – UTJ). The MKs were unanimous in declaring that they intend to do everything within their power to forestall...

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But, wait, there’s more! According to La Stampa, Pope Paul VI has reportedly been penciled in for beatification this coming fall at the conclusion of the Synod of Bishops in Rome. Yes, that’s right—Paul VI! Remember him? That vague, sort of nondescript pontiff who made up for negligible personal magnetism with an almost fanatical penchant for novelty. There is no particular cult associated with his cause, of course, other than among a few aging ecclesiastical hippies inside the Vatican who are evidently bound and determined to nominate their pal Paul for a Halo Award, come hell or high water. Something...

At least seven people wrote Decker and told him to “go to hell.” For instance, MariaTM supportively promised, “I will pray for your burning soul.” And Amanda kept things real simple: “Go to hell lowlife.” One simple text just said: “hater.” Someone calling himself or herself SSPVArchangel asked, “When did the other 2 ‘popes’ die and who made Decker Supreme Pontiff??” On FreeRepublic.com there was KarlFromOhio who cleverly wrote, “Since John Paul II eliminated the Devil’s Advocate position in the canonization procedure, I guess USA Today has decided to take the position on a pro bono basis.”

Link only included due to copyright restrictions: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/21/pope-saint-johnpaulii-easter-sex-abuse-column/7980347/

TRES RIOS, Costa Rica (AP) — On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper. "Stand up," Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. "Don't be afraid." Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day in a miracle that cleared the way for the late pope to be declared a saint on April 27 in a ceremony at the Vatican where Mora will be a guest...

Japanese Tech Firm NTT Is Scanning the Ancient Texts in the Vatican Apostolic Library Almost 600 years after Pope Nicholas V founded the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Holy See is now turning to 50 experts, five scanners and a Japanese IT firm to digitize millions of pages from its priceless manuscripts, opening them to the broader public for the first time. When the project is finished, one of the richest and most important collections of historical texts in the world will be available with a click of the mouse—and free. The plan marks a revolution for an institution known as...

Between the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical texts in the world, and this microfilm, which contains the Bible and traveled to the moon on board Apollo 14, there is a 2,000-year span. Both pieces are intended to show the uniqueness of the Bible. They're part of the "Verbum Domini” exhibit, which includes 150 other precious artifacts. CARY L. SUMMERS Museum of the Bible, Oklahoma City (USA) "The technology that we have today that didn't exist many years ago, we're able to look at the writing underneath writings, For example in this collection, it's called the Climaci Rescriptus, and in...

The Vatican said Friday (local time) it was "willing and desirous" to intervene diplomatically in Venezuela's crisis after weeks of deadly unrest but says it must study expectations and options about what role it could play. On Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted the idea of a good-faith facilitator after coming under mounting pressure to reconcile with opponents who have been protesting for nearly three months. He mentioned Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, until last year the Vatican's ambassador to Caracas. Critics of Maduro's socialist administration have pressed for Vatican involvement: Shortly before he was arrested, opposition leader...

Isabela Munoz of Oakley, Calif., left, talks with her sister, Jasmine, about an upcoming trip to Rome. Isabela donated her bone marrow to help Jasmine survive leukemia. Thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Jasmine will realize a dream when she and her family travel to Rome in April to see the Vatican and attend Pope Francis' general audience. (CNS photo/Jose Luis Aguirre, The Catholic Voice)OAKLAND, Calif. - Jasmine Munoz could have met Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, gone to a beach or taken a cruise, but the 12-year-old leukemia survivor would rather see the Vatican and meet Pope Francis. Thanks to...

VATICAN CITY ― There were gaffes and there were laughs, but U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Rome clearly served its purpose, if the hope was to bask in the glow of the popular Pope Francis. The day began with a stiff handshake between Obama and the pope, but the mood quickly lightened when the president quipped, “His Holiness is probably the only person who has to undergo more protocol than me,” after observing the whimsically dressed Swiss Guards and row of tuxedoed papal attendants when he was on his way to the pontifical library. They shared a giggle when...

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama said Pope Francis did not raise Obamacare “in detail” when they met on Thursday, but that in a separate meeting with the Vatican’s secretary of state “we discussed briefly the issue of making sure that conscience and religious freedom was observed in the context of applying the law.” At a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Obama also acknowledged that he differs with the Vatican’s stance on some issues, but added that he “heartily” agrees with most of its positions. - See more at:

Rome Correspondent Hilary White contributed to this report. ROME, March 27, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In their first face-to-face meeting, Pope Francis reiterated the Catholic Church's concerns with President Barack Obama's policies on abortion, conscience rights, and freedom of religion. A source familiar with the talks told LifeSiteNews that the Vatican press release on the meeting was "remarkably forthright" in emphasizing the fact that the pope raised these issues with the president. According to the press release, the pope launched a discussion with the American president about the proper role of church and state, raising “questions of particular relevance for...

Pope Francis and US President Barack Obama speak during a private audience at athe Vatican, March 27, 2014. Credit: ANSA/OSSERVATORE ROMANO. Vatican City, Mar 27, 2014 / 11:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- U.S. President Barack Obama’s March 27 meeting with Pope Francis comes at a time of tension between his administration and the Church over religious liberty, several Catholic leaders have said. “There has been a great deal of acrimony over issues related to religious freedom. This is something new and quite serious, since it affects the ability of the Church to carry out its mission,” V. Bradley Lewis, a philosophy...

  March 27, 2014, Thursday – Francis and President Obama  "The two were scheduled to meet for just half an hour, but their private discussion lasted 52 minutes. At the end, they exchanged gifts, with the Pope offering Obama two medallions and a copy of his apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel [Evangelii Gaudium]. 'You know, I actually will probably read this when I'm in the Oval Office, when I am deeply frustrated, and I am sure it will give me strength and will calm me down,' Obama said. 'I hope," the Pope responded."   — Associated Press report...

Official debrief following the return of Lady M’s China entourage: “It turned out to be a somewhat more substantive swing through this massive country than expected, displaying Obama’s deft ability to mix diplomacy with her personal narrative. Before flying home late Wednesday afternoon, she had raised the issues of minority rights, Internet access and religious freedom, all while charming the Chinese public by skipping rope, practicing tai chi with high school students and declaring herself awed by the nation’s ancient tourist sites.” In other words: an awesome piece of soft diplomacy success, according to the Washington Post, as well as...

The use of wood from Baltimore’s basilica to construct a “seed chest” given to Pope Francis by President Barack Obama March 27 points to the history of American Catholicism and Baltimore’s role in it, said Monsignor Arthur Valenzano, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “I’m very pleased,” Monsignor Valenzano said of the gift. “It gives us another chance to get the word out nationally, and now internationally, about the role that the basilica played and continues to play in the United States.” Robert S. Reier, the basilica’s operations manager, collected...

Both England’s Tablet and the United States’ Commonweal incited debate last week with their accounts of an exclusive interview Archbishop Georg Gänswein granted the German television network ZDF. While the Tablet took more editorial liberties than Commonweal, Commonweal signaled tacit approval of the Tablet’s editorial stance.The bottom line: Gänswein’s interview indicates the Prefect of the Papal Household has come “unbound,” that he doesn’t much care for his new boss; and so, it is time for him to go, according to the Tablet. Perhaps, he should pack his bags and vacate Rome.The first round of comments came from the Tablet’s...

The lone clerical abuse survivor nominated by Pope Francis to sit on the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said the commission needs to achieve concrete change in order to “show other survivors that the church is going to get it right.” Marie Collins, who was abused by a chaplain as a sick 13-year-old at Crumlin hospital in Dublin in the 1960s, told Catholic News Service that many survivors will be watching the new Vatican commission “with interest, but many will have written it off as merely a PR exercise.” “Survivors will not be satisfied with more words...