Pope Benedict shows signs of aging, but Vatican reports no illness

Pilgrims have their cameras ready as Pope Benedict XVI makes his way through the crowd in St Peter's Square at the Vatican before a general audience in 2007. The 85-year-old pontiff said he no longer has the energy to exercise his ministry over the Universal Church and will resign at the end of the month. Photo: CNS. The Universal Church will long feel the effects of Pope Benedict's time oc...

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican monastery where Pope Benedict XVI intends to live began its life as the Vatican gardener's house, but was established as a cloistered convent by Blessed John Paul II in 1994. When Pope Benedict, 85, announced on February 11 that his age and declining energies prompted his decision to resign effective on February 28, the Vatican said he would move out to the pap...

In his first month on Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI sent two dozen mini-messages in nine languages, generating more than 270,000 comments and responses from other Twitter users, according to a study conducted by an Italian Jesuit magazine.

Participants at the annual March for Life in Washington on January 25 demonstrated just how determined they are, not only by showing up in such large numbers on a bitter, cold day, but by continuing a 40-year tradition of protesting the US Supreme Court’s decision legalising abortion.

“Faith is knowing the truth and adhering to it; charity is ‘walking’ in the truth,” the Pope said in his annual message for Lent, which in 2013 begins on February 13 for Latin-rite Catholics. “Faith is genuine only if crowned by charity.”

New archbishop of Canterbury reiterates opposition to same-sex marriage

Medical staff at East Timor’s national hospital, Dili, said goodbye to onerous transcribing recently with the introduction of a new automated laboratory information system in partnership with St John of God (SJOG) Health Care. Six SJOG pathology staff from Western Australia and Victoria spent up to six weeks training and assisting scientists at the Hospital Nacional Guido Valadares (HNGV...

The Catholic Church has never encouraged anyone to use ivory for religious devotional objects and, in fact, teaches that animals must be treated with respect, the Vatican spokesman said in response to questions posed in an online National Geographic editorial, saying, “thinking that there is an important ivory trafficking centre to uproot here (in the Vatican) in order to save African elephants makes no sense”.

Four decades since Roe v Wade and the US continues to lose its morals and its soul writes Catholic News Service reporter Francis X Rocca.