Free Republic

Pope Francis has called on Catholic leaders to seek a ban on the death penalty exclaiming that 'Thou shall not kill applies to the guilty as well as the innocent'. Speaking to thousands at St. Peter's Square, in the Vatican, the Pontiff asked politicians around the world to make 'a courageous and exemplary gesture' during the Church's current Holy Year. He said: 'I appeal to the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet Pope Francis and US Secretary of State John Kerry in Italy next week. Netanyahu will meet Francis in the Vatican Wednesday, ahead of the pontiff’s expected visit to Israel next year. In Rome, the prime minister will meet with Kerry to discuss the current nuclear negotiations between six world powers on Iran, and the peace process with the Palestinians, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. The first round of renewed nuclear negotiations between the so-called P5+1 powers and the Islamic Republic concluded Wednesday with cautious optimism from both sides....

Rome Reports that Pope Francis has ordered Cardinal Bernard Law to stay away from the Basilica of St. Mary Major and is about to ship him off to a monastery are “completely and totally false,” according to a Vatican spokesperson.During a press briefing on Thursday about Pope Francis’ visit to St. Mary Major, one of the four pontifical basilicas in Rome, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi said that Law had briefly greeted Francis and then exited the scene.The Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, however, reported that Francis had told Law to stop appearing in public at the basilica, where he retired...