His last interview, published posthumously, has ignited the controversy. The leading authorities of the Church have ignored it, with the sole exception of Cardinal Ruini. One more reason to analyze it critically. Benedict XVI greets Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini during a private meeting at the Vatican on May 27, 2005. (CNS photo) “Cardinal Martini [...]
How do you see the situation of the Church? Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini: The Church is tired in prosperous Europe and in America. Our culture has grown old, our churches are large, our religious houses are empty and the bureaucratic apparatus of the Church is becoming bloated, our rites and our garments are pompous. But do [...]
Paolo Gabriele, the personal assistant of Pope Benedict XVI accused of illicitly copying private Vatican correspondence and giving it to a journalist, told Vatican investigators this spring and summer that he acted out of concern for the Pope and the Church. Documents released by the Vatican August 13 outline the case against Gabriele, including his own [...]
When summer comes, the rhythm of work at the Holy See slows and the Pope’s agenda is less intense. This year, for the third time, Benedict XVI decided to spend Rome’s hottest months — July, August and September — at his residence in Castel Gandolfo, not in the northern Italian Alps. At the beginning of his [...]
Carlo Fusco, the lawyer for the papal butler charged with stealing Vatican documents, has left his client’s defense team, citing a difference over defense strategies. Fusco told news agencies on August 30 that he and Paolo Gabriele, who was arrested in May and formally charged with aggravated theft August 13, spoke at length August 23 and, [...]
Paolo Gabriele, Pope’s former butler, and Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer technician from the Vatican secretariat of state, will go on trial beginning September 29 Paolo Gabriele, the “crow.” A Vatican magistrate has set a trial date for two men formally indicted in connection with the so-called “VatiLeaks” scandal. The first day of the public [...]
“Let me go to the House of the Father”… These were the last words of Blessed Pope John Paul II before he lapsed into a coma that ended in his departure from this world on April 2, 2005. His final pronouncement to the world, uttered in near silence to a religious sister tending to his bedside [...]
Some years ago, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s personal confessor was no longer available, as he had to leave Italy; then the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith showed the desire to have a new confessor from the Franciscan Conventual Friars, who are the official confessors at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. [...]
In the heart of Rome, right next to St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museums, you will find a small and exclusive hotel, the Relais Vatican View, which offers modern accommodations, yet is almost cradled in the niche of the ancient Vatican walls and the Passetto. It is literally a stone’s throw from the Vatican, and is [...]
July Monday 9 “MISSION WORK REQUIRES GOSPEL JOY, LIVING GOD’S LOVE” Bringing God’s word to mission lands is successful only when missionaries live the Gospel with joy and share the love and goodness they receive from God, Benedict XVI said during a brief visit to a center belonging to the missionaries of the Society of the Divine [...]