Vatican

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 attack on the human rights policies of Gordon Brown, claiming […]