Pope Benedict XVI left Prague on Monday afternoon after a three-day visit in Czech Republic. He hailed the fall of communism in eastern Europe on Saturday, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.
As Silvio Berlusconi takes on an array of foreign papers and the all-powerful Catholic Church, critics say this time the Italian prime minister may have gone too far – even by his standards.
Franciscan friar, Father Michael Seed, is well-known in England for being confidante to celebrities and politicians, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Pope Benedict XVI had minor surgery on Friday after he slipped in the bath and broke his wrist. The 82-year-old Roman Catholic leader is in good health and has since returned to his holiday home.
A Basque bishop on Saturday criticised the Roman Catholic Church's silence over the killing of 14 priests by General Franco's forces during Spain's 1936-39 civil war. Historians estimate half a million people died in the war.
US President Barack Obama on Friday promised to reduce the number of abortions in America during his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, while also urging the pope to continue pushing for Middle East peace.
Four people were killed and 34 wounded in a bomb attack outside a Catholic church as churchgoers filed out of the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city. Two of the dead were soldiers guarding the church, police sources said.
The Vatican said on Wednesday that the ordination of priests belonging to the Lefebvrist schism, scheduled for the end of June, would be "illegitimate".
The Roman Catholic order of Christian Brothers will review how much compensation it can pay the victims of sexual abuse and violence at Irish schools following the publication of a report on abuse at institutions the order ran beginning in the 1930s.
