By Cindy Wooden and Benedicta Cipolla UNITED NATIONS (CNS) - Neither government nor religion has a right to change or limit human rights, because those rights flow from the dignity of each person created in God's image, Pope Benedict XVI said. Pope Benedict XVI addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York on April 18. Photo: CNS/Brendan McDermid, R...

Your Eminence, Dear Brother Bishops, Dear Young Friends, “Proclaim the Lord Christ  and always have your answer ready for people who ask the reason for the hope that is within you” (1 Pet 3:15). With these words from the First Letter of Peter I greet each of you with heartfelt affection. I thank Cardinal Egan for his kind words of welcome and I also thank the representativ...

- With fewer and fewer Catholics going to confession, Pope Benedict XVI urged priests and seminarians to make the sacrament of penance a time for sinners to feel God's merciful love. "Sin does not lie at the heart of the sacramental celebration, but rather God's mercy, which is infinitely greater than each of our faults," he said March 7. The pope spoke to about 700...