Vatican

VATICAN CITY --- The Scottish cardinal who resigned as archbishop after admitting to sexual misconduct will leave Scotland for months of prayer and atonement, the Vatican said Wednesday in a rare sanction. [ Read more → ]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — While the appointment of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope has filled many in this deeply Catholic country with pride, members of the gay community are unsurprisingly less than enthusiastic with the Vatican's choice. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY — Argentine Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Pope Francis. [ Read more → ]

LONDON — The cardinal who until recently served as Britain's highest-ranking Catholic leader on Sunday acknowledged unspecified sexual misbehavior and promised to play "no further part" in the public life of the church, an admission which comes at an awkward time for the Vatican. [ Read more → ]

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, has resigned amid allegations that he made homosexual advances to younger clergy in his diocese. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election. [ Read more → ]

ROME — A controversial article by Italy’s respected, leading daily newspaper, La Repubblica, has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of blackmail, corruption and a network of gay prelates in the Vatican. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY — Declaring that he lacks the strength to do his job, Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday he will resign Feb. 28 — becoming the first pontiff to step down in 600 years. His decision sets the stage for a mid-March conclave to elect a new leader for a Catholic Church in deep turmoil. [ Read more → ]

In private moments, it must be disconcerting to the Pope that gay couples pledging their love and lives to each other, have significantly greater moral authority than the Vatican. People, including most moderate Catholics, must be scratching their heads and wondering why a troubled religious institution that does not have its house in order, is obsessively trying to cause disorder in loving gay households? [ Read more → ]

The Vatican this week rebuked the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – an umbrella group representing most American nuns – for spending too much time “promoting issues of social justice” and failing to speak out often enough about “issues of crucial importance to the life of the church and society,” such as gay marriage. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI on Friday denounced the "powerful political and cultural currents" seeking to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States, and urged U.S. bishops to strengthen their teaching of the evils of premarital sex and cohabitation. [ Read more → ]

The UK's Daily Mail is reporting that three Catholic priests were caught on tape having sex in Rome's gay nightclubs. The news has reportedly "shocked ... the devoutly Catholic country." [ Read more → ]

The Vatican condemned Britain’s proposed equality law Monday, complaining that legislation to give homosexual equal rights “violates natural law”. From UK's Times-Online: On the day Rome finally confirmed that the Pope would make a state visit to Britain this year, the Vatican launched an unprecedented... [ Read more → ]

The Roman Catholic Church still regards homosexuality as an “insult to God” and homosexuals and transsexuals will never go to Heaven, a leading cardinal said on Wednesday, prompting a rebuke from the Vatican. [caption id="attachment_3465" align="alignleft" width="259" caption="Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan"][/caption] Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan,... [ Read more → ]