Showing posts with label Vatican. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vatican. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Pope Asks Iran to Work for Mideast Peace, Stop Spread of Terrorism
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Ex-Vatican Official Krzysztof Charamsa: 'I'm a Gay Man. I'm Not a Monster'
Krzysztof Charamsa, the former Vatican official who was sacked and defrocked after publicly announcing he was gay, breaks out into a wide grin when he is asked whether he has plans to marry his boyfriend. His answer is coy, but his smile and giddy laughter seem to reveal his intentions.
“I understand many people who say ‘we don’t need the institution of marriage. Our love is free’. I am not in this part of society. For me, [marriage] is part of the dynamic of love and I thank God that I live in a century where it’s possible, thanks to the homosexual movement and thanks to many homosexual martyrs.”
It has been less than a month since the Polish 43-year-old, a former senior Vatican aide and monsignor, announced at a press conference that he was gay and in love as his Catalan boyfriend, Eduard, stood by his side. The admission, a day before the start of a contentious meeting of bishops in Rome to debate the church’s approach to modern “family issues”, including homosexuality, resulted in him getting immediately sacked.
The Vatican called the timing of the announcement “very serious and irresponsible” and said it was clear he could no longer work as a senior aide for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office within the Vatican tasked with defending Catholic doctrine. Read on and comment » | Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome | Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Monday, October 05, 2015
Vatican Fires Priest Who Announced He's Gay, in Relationship
Related »
Sunday, October 04, 2015
Polish Priest Krysztof Charamsa Comes Out as Gay, Is Sacked by Vatican
The Vatican dismissed a priest from his post in a Holy See office on Saturday after he told a newspaper he was gay and urged the Catholic Church to change its stance on homosexuality.
Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa was removed from his position at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal arm where he had worked since 2003, a statement said.
Charamsa, 43, and a Polish theologian, announced he was gay and had a partner in a long interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera {English] newspaper on Saturday.
He later held a news conference with his partner, a Spanish man, and gay activists at a Rome restaurant. They had planned a demonstration in front of the Vatican but changed the venue several hours before it was due to have started.
The Vatican said Charamsa's dismissal had nothing to do with his comments on his personal situation, which it said "merit respect". Read on and comment » | Philip Pullella | Saturday, October 3, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Boko Haram Sends Terrorists to Help ISIS Take Libya as Map Shows Horrifying Plan for World
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| One ISIS supporter posted this map on Twitter, boasting the group will conquer Rome |
The Nigerian-based fanatics have dispatched up to 200 heavily armed troops to bolster ISIS forces in north Africa in a terrifying sign of the growing alliance between the two feared groups.
ISIS is fighting to take control of Libya - which has been engulfed by a chaotic civil war since the fall of Colonel Gadaffi - because it believes that it is a launchpad to Europe.
Boosted by the deployment, gleeful ISIS fighters boasted online of how they will use their stronghold in the north African nation to invade Italy and other parts of southern Europe.
The terrorists have described Libya as the "gateway to Rome" and it is thought they are planning to stow away fighters on smugglers' boats full of migrants destined for Italy.
ISIS supporters posted a series of mocked up messages online showing the eternal city in flames and the black flag of their hate group flying above the Vatican.
One even posted a map showing the area the terror group was targeting, writing in French that its fighters will conquer Iran, Burma, Rome and even America. » | Nick Gutteridge | Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Vatican Says Ireland Gay Marriage Vote Is 'Defeat for Humanity'
A senior Vatican official has attacked the legalisation of gay marriage in Ireland. The referendum that overwhelmingly backed marriage equality last weekend was a “defeat for humanity”, he claimed.
“I was deeply saddened by the result,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday night. “The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelisation. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.”
The remarks by the Vatican’s top diplomat, who is seen as second only to the pope in the church’s hierarchy, represent the most damning assessment of the Irish vote by a senior church official to date. » | Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome | Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Pope Calls Palestinian Leader Abbas 'Angel of Peace' at Vatican Meeting
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| Pope Francis meets Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas during an audience in the Vatican |
Pope Francis met Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, in the Vatican on Saturday, calling him "an angel of peace".
The meeting between the Pope – who visited both Israel and the occupied West Bank a year ago – and Mr Abbas came days after the Vatican confirmed it had concluded a treaty which effectively recognises Palestinian statehood.
The treaty – which has yet to be signed – states that the Vatican has switched its diplomatic relations from the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the "state of Palestine", thus giving further impetus to growing international calls to recognise a Palestinian state. » | AFP | Saturday, May 16, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
Al-Qaeda Cell Planned Suicide Attack on Vatican
USA TODAY: ROME — Italian police busted an al-Qaeda-linked terror ring that planned, but never carried out, an attack on the Vatican five years ago and is believed to have been involved in a bombing in Pakistan that killed more than 100 people, authorities said Friday.
Raids were carried out simultaneously in seven different Italian provinces with arrest warrants for 18 suspected Islamic extremists following a lengthy investigation in Cagliari, capital of the Italian island Sardinia.
Authorities uncovered plans for a suicide bomber plot against the Vatican in 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI was pontiff. Evidence includes a "martyr's vow" from a would-be suicide bomber threatening to strike against the Vatican, the spiritual focal point for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
Mario Carta, an official from the counter-terror police force that carried out the raids, called it "one of the most important operations ever carried out in Italy." Police said the operation targeted an "extremely well-structured terror network" based in Sardinia since at least 2005 that was made up of Pakistani and Afghan nationals.
Nine people have been arrested, and two are still at large in Italy. Seven of the suspects are believed to be in Pakistan, Carta said. » | Eric J. Lyman, Special for USA TODAY | Friday, April 24, 2015
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Turkey Anger at Pope Francis Armenian 'Genocide' Claim
Ankara immediately summoned the Vatican's envoy after the Pope made the comments at a service in Rome.
Turkey's Foreign Minister described it as "far from the historical reality".
Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million people were killed by Ottoman forces in 1915. Turkey has always disputed the number of dead.
The dispute has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey. (+ BBC video) » | Sunday, April 12, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
ISIL: Force May Be Necessary Says Vatican Ambassador to Geneva
The Vatican's ambassador in Geneva has said the use of force will be necessary to protect minority groups from Islamic State aggression if a political solution cannot be achieved.
In an interview with U.S. Catholic website Crux, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the jihadists, who have declared a cross-border caliphate after seizing land in eastern Syria and northern Iraq, were committing "genocide" and must be stopped.
"What's needed is a coordinated and well-thought-out coalition to do everything possible to achieve a political settlement without violence," Crux quoted Tomasi as saying on Friday, "but if that's not possible, then the use of force will be necessary." » | Reuters | Sunday, March 15, 2015
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Op-Ed: Islam Wants to Convert Rome
First the black flag of the Caliphate waving over the Vatican. Then the Colosseum in flames and a sea of blood that submerges it. Finally, the announcement of the Libyan caliphate that “we are south of Rome”.
In the propaganda videos of the Islamic State there are many prophecies about the fall and the conquest of Rome. There is a long Islamic tradition aiming at Rome, “Romiyyah”, aiming to make it the fourth holiest city of Islam (after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem) and the base from which Islam will conquer the Western world. Rome is the greatest magnet of the mystical Islamic universe.
Roger Garaudy, the French intellectual who converted to Islam, in 1986 launched his challenge, boasting: “I’ll bring Islam to Rome”. The foundation of this prophecy is the thirtieth Sura of the Koran, called ar Rum, “Romans”. The fall of Rome is based on the myth of the Emperor Heraclius and a letter that he would have written to Muhammad, recognizing him as “the messenger of God”.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the Islamic Hanbali school (now in power in Saudi Arabia) reported among the “hadith”, the sayings of Muhammad, that the Prophet of Islam predicted that “the city of Heraclius (Constantinople) would fall first, then Rome”.
In 2003, Osama Bin Laden made a speech on “The new Rome” and three years later, in the footsteps of Pope Benedict’s Islamic speech at Regensburg University, Al Qaeda proclaimed: “Servants of the Cross, expect defeat, the Muslims will conquer Rome as they conquered Constantinople”. » | Giulio Meotti | Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Charlie Hebdo Attacks: Pope Francis Condemns 'Fundamentalist Terrorism'
Pope Francis condemned "fundamentalist terrorism" and "deviant forms of religion" for last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, amid fresh claims that he himself may be at risk of attack from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
The Pope said religion was being perverted by extremists and used to justify evil, including "the tragic slayings" of 17 people that took place in Paris last week after Islamist extremists attacked the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and took people hostage in a kosher supermarket.
"Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext," the 78-year-old pontiff said in an annual address to foreign diplomats accredited to the Vatican.
"Losing their freedom, people become enslaved, whether to the latest fads, or to power, money, or even deviant forms of religion," he said in his State of the World speech.
He spoke out against the menace posed by Islamic fundamentalism after an Israeli television channel reported that the Vatican could be Isil's next target. » | Nick Squiress, Rome | Monday, January 12, 2015
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Pope Sacks the Head of His Swiss Guard for Being 'Too Strict'
He has dismissed and demoted cardinals, bishops and the Vatican secretary of state, and now Pope Francis’s reformist zeal has claimed a new scalp – the head of his own private army, the Swiss Guard.
In a dispassionate one-sentence notice, the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, announced on Wednesday that Daniel Anrig will no longer serve as the commandant of the 500-year-old corps after the end of next month.
No official explanation was given for the decision, but it was widely rumoured that the Argentinean Pope, who has established a warmer, more inclusive style of governance since being appointed pontiff in March last year, found the commander’s manner overly strict and “Teutonic”.
The 77-year-old pope is said to have been appalled recently to have emerged one morning from his private suite of rooms to find that a Swiss Guard had been standing guard all night.
“Sit down,” he told the young guardsman, to which the soldier said: “I can’t, it’s against orders.” » | Nick Squires, Rome | Wednesday, November 03, 2014
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Le commandant de la Garde suisse partira à la fin janvier : L'actuel commandant quittera son poste au début 2015, après plus de cinq ans à son poste, contrairement aux usages. Le Lucernois Christophe Graf, actuel vice-commandant de la Garde, pourrait lui succéder. » | smk/ats/Newsnet | mercredi 03 décembre 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Inside Story: Pope Francis: Reform or Modernisation?
Monday, March 10, 2014
Pope Says Catholic Church Should Not Dismiss Gay Marriage
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| Pope Francis |
Pope Francis says the issue of gay marriage should be studied and not dismissed out-of-hand, a senior Roman Catholic cardinal has revealed.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the outspoken archbishop of New York, said Pope Francis had told him: “Rather than quickly condemn them, let's just ask the questions as to why that has appealed to certain people."
Archbishop Dolan stressed that the Pope had not shifted the Catholic Church’s position on same-sex unions.
"It wasn't as if he came out and approved them,” he told the NBC television network in the US.
But the Pope wanted senior Church leaders to “look into” the issue and to scrutinise the reasons why many countries have legalised same-sex marriages. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Monday, March 10, 2014
Monday, March 03, 2014
Pope Francis Drops F-bomb
Pope Francis inadvertently demonstrated his own fallibility during an address in St Peter’s Square when he mistakenly said the Italian word for “f**k”.
In the 12 months since he was elected, the Argentinean Pope, who worked with the poor in the slums of Buenos Aires being before [sic] made pontiff, has shown a healthy sense of humour and an unerring ability to connect with ordinary people.
But he accidentally went a little too far in using the language of the street after mispronouncing the word “caso”, which means example, as “cazzo” – Italian for f--- or, in other contexts, cock.
“If each of us were to accumulate wealth not only for ourselves but to put at the service of others, in this f--- [pause], in this case God’s providence would manifest itself in this gesture of solidarity,” he told a large crowd, delivering his ‘Angelus’ address from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square.
The 77-year-old Jesuit Pope corrected himself almost immediately after making the gaffe during the audience at the Vatican on Sunday, but it was posted by Italians on YouTube and other social media and has since spread round the world. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Monday, March 03, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Pope Francis Urges New Cardinals to Avoid Vatican Intrigue and Gossip
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| Pope Francis holds the book of the gospels aloft. |
Pope Francis has instructed his new "princes of the church" - among them Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster - to avoid "intrigue, gossip, cliques, favouritism and partiality" as they don the Roman Catholic church's prized red biretta.
Speaking in St Peter's basilica a day after he created 19 new cardinals, the Argentinean pontiff strictly exhorted the men to reject the habits of a royal court that have in recent years come to be associated with parts of the Roman curia, or Vatican bureaucracy.
Looking up from his notes to address the massed ranks of cardinals, he told them: "A cardinal – I say this especially to you – enters the church of Rome, my brothers, not a [royal] court. May all of us avoid, and help others to avoid, habits and ways of acting typical of a court: intrigue, gossip, cliques, favouritism and partiality." » | Lizzy Davies in Rome | Sunday, February 23, 2014
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