Pope Benedict XVI News

VATICAN CITY, June 16 .- As he met with thousands of pro-life advocates from around the globe, Pope Francis stressed that the Gospel is the "way to freedom and life," but lifestyles that are "dictated by selfishness" lead to slavery and death.

Wearing black boots, jackets and vests, the tattooed Harley-Davidson riders stuck out among the nuns, priests, school children and shorts-wearing tourists at an open-air Mass in St. Peter's square.

Lebanon's Beshara Boutros al-Rai is greeted by US cardinal Bernard Francis Law upon arrival for a ceremony where the pontif will appoint him as one of the six new cardinals on November 24, 2012 at St Peter's basilica at the Vatican.

We have been seeing a lot lately of the fundamentalist Christian self-identity of being a persecuted minority despite their own religion's long history of persecuting every alternative to itself.

The Charity and Development Appeal supports more than 70 educational, charitable and spiritual organizations which counsel, feed clothe, house, educate and comfort those in need throughout the four counties in the Diocese of Phoenix.

VATICAN CITY a?? One-hundred days after becoming the first non-European pope since the eighth century, the main difference between Francis and his European predecessors is one more of style than of concrete action.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has asked Pope Francis to canonize a doctor who tended to the poor in Caracas and is considered a saint already by many Venezuelans.

The Shroud of Turin is surrounded by as much mystery as reverence. For centuries historians, researchers and theologians have engaged in relentless debate over the Shroud's authenticity.

Few religious communities have gone as far in fighting climate change as a church in Queensland, Australia, which has 24 solar panels bolted to the roof in the shape of a Christian cross.

Editor's note: Gate City Musings, a column on City Hall happenings and other Nashua items, is published every other Monday.

Uh, Armenians are upset about the jihad slaughter of millions of Armenians. This Islamic denial of their historic bloodlust and their subsequent bullying is pure supremacism.

'Let us say 'Yes' to life and not death.' These were the words of Pope Francis during his homily on Sunday morning for Evangelium Vitae Day, a day celebrating the Gospel of Life.

Twice in recent years, the makers of Who Do You Think You Are? have approached me to see if my ancestry might be sufficiently interesting for their programme.

A report that Pope Francis privately acknowledged the existence of a "gay lobby" inside the Vatican offers a sensational example of his unvarnished speaking style and a reminder of the challenge that style poses for the papacy in the age of digital communications and vanishing privacy.

Pope Francis blessed scores of Harley-Davidson riders who went to the Vatican to celebrate the manufacturer's 110th anniversary.

Pope Francis urged a delegation of French lawmakers on Saturday to avoid following only "fashions and ideas of the moment", when legislating, in an apparent reference to the country's legalisation of gay marriage last month.

A new film, Under the Roman Sky , starring James Cromwell as Pius XII, details the heroic efforts of Pius XII to save the Jews of Rome from the Nazis, after Rome came under Nazi occupation subsequent to the fall of Mussolini following the Allied invasion of southern Italy in 1943.

When boasting of having Jesus Christ as one's savior, people shouldn't pretend they aren't guilty of sin, Pope Francis said in a morning homily.

The series finale of " The Borgias " premieres on Showtime on Sunday, June 16, 2013, at 10 p.m. ET, according to an announcement from Showtime Networks .

In 1984 -- the year not the book, but it was fitting -- and five years before she died, Barbara Tuchman published a book called The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam .