Cardinal Kurt Koch Pope Benedict has chosen a quiet, thoughtful, relatively young Swiss theologian to head the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. (Born as the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity under Pope John XXIII in 1960 the dicastery was given its [...]
Ornella Parolini is an Italian scientist whose research team in Italy is working on some of the most advanced stem cell therapies in the world. Her specialty is to study the cells from placentas. She believes these placental cells can be uses in effective stem cell therapies, making it unnecessary to consider the use [...]
Marino Restrepo. His life was changed by being kidnapped and held a prisoner for six months. The story of a conversion. Marino Restrepo’s life took a drastic turn at midnight on Christmas Eve in 1997. Driving to the ranch of one of his uncles in Colombia, where he was to spend the night, he [...]
Sister Patricia Murray has helped hundreds of thousands in the Sudan. Last year, long years of struggle for independence finally led to the creation of a new independent state in Africa — South Sudan. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. Into that situation of mixed hope and suffering has stepped [...]
Birgit Wansing Though few in the general public have heard of her, those few believe that many of the books by Joseph Ratzinger, both before he became Pope, and since, would not have been written without her help. She is one of the Pope’s closest and most trusted collaborators and advisors, and for the [...]
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kuin. This photo was taken when he was a bishop, so he wears a bishop's purple hat. For the past decade, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, the sixth Chinese cardinal in the history of the Church, has been a fearless defender of the Church in Hong Kong and mainland China. As the People’s [...]
Mother Miriam (forrmerly Rosalind Moss) Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God is one of the most eloquent, passionate, filled-with-the-fire-of-faith women it has been our privilege to come to know. Born Rosalind Moss into a Conservative Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, after a long spiritual journey, she became just four months ago, on [...]
Dom Cassian Folsom, OSB Sometimes we are able to see a splendid adventure of life and in faith just at the moment that it is unfolding. And we are able to watch the struggles, and challenges, and successes, of a man, or group of men, and even to participate with them in that adventure. [...]
Again this year, as each year for the past decade, we are happy to present to you Inside the Vatican’s “Top Ten” people for the year just past. Our “Top Ten People of 2011” include cardinals and laypeople, diplomats and monks, scholars and activists. All are marked by a common characteristic: humility. None wished to be [...]
Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a meeting with cardinals and bishops during an ordinary public consistory at the Vatican February 21, 2011 (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters) Note: On December 28, Sandro Magister, a veteran and respected Italian “Vaticanist” based in Rome, released an unsigned article saying that Pope Benedict will hold a Consistory [...]
