A Turkish television show is offering contestants what it claims is the "biggest prize ever" -- the chance for atheists to convert to one of the world's major religions.
It's an issue that simply won't go away. In spite of signals from the Vatican discouraging even discussions of obligatory celibacy for Catholic priests, the almost 1,000-year-old rule is under the microscope. And it will be for decades to come. Here's why.
"The Da Vinci Code," a film based on a novel from Dan Brown, opened three years ago amid controversy and protests. Now, a new film based on another Brown novel, "Angels and Demons," opened on Friday.
Critics and Catholics were quick to denounce Ron Howard's faithfully irreligious film of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" when it was released almost exactly three years ago.
Tom Hanks dashes through a graceful Roman piazza, past an ancient Egyptian obelisk surrounded by fountains of water-spouting lions, his eyes focused on a church tucked into the corner of the square.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday to use his moral authority to thwart anti-Semitic sentiment and hatred toward Israel, especially by Iran.
Three years ago, the film based on Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" was the focus of protest and controversy, with a Vatican archbishop calling for a boycott and Catholics at many levels refuting plot points.
For more than 20 years, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican's top doctrinal czar, was the intellectual architect of the papacy of John Paul II.
A Turkish television show is offering contestants what it claims is the "biggest prize ever" -- the chance for atheists to convert to one of the world's major religions.
It's an issue that simply won't go away. In spite of signals from the Vatican discouraging even discussions of obligatory celibacy for Catholic priests, the almost 1,000-year-old rule is under the microscope. And it will be for decades to come. Here's why.
"The Da Vinci Code," a film based on a novel from Dan Brown, opened three years ago amid controversy and protests. Now, a new film based on another Brown novel, "Angels and Demons," opened on Friday.
Critics and Catholics were quick to denounce Ron Howard's faithfully irreligious film of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" when it was released almost exactly three years ago.
Tom Hanks dashes through a graceful Roman piazza, past an ancient Egyptian obelisk surrounded by fountains of water-spouting lions, his eyes focused on a church tucked into the corner of the square.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday to use his moral authority to thwart anti-Semitic sentiment and hatred toward Israel, especially by Iran.
Three years ago, the film based on Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" was the focus of protest and controversy, with a Vatican archbishop calling for a boycott and Catholics at many levels refuting plot points.
For more than 20 years, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican's top doctrinal czar, was the intellectual architect of the papacy of John Paul II.
Pope Benedict XVI arrived Friday in Amman, Jordan, for a weeklong visit to the Middle East that he hopes will help "foster good relations between Christians and Muslims."
If director Ron Howard hopes religious controversy will help sell tickets to "Angels & Demons" the way it boosted his "Da Vinci Code," the Catholic Church is not playing along with his script.
Pope Benedict XVI will visit the earthquake-ravaged town of L'Aquila on April 28 -- three weeks after the disaster struck -- the Vatican said Saturday.
An estimated 1 million people turned out to hear Pope Benedict XVI preach a Mass in Angola on Sunday, the last major event of his first trip to Africa.
The Vatican said Friday it is not satisfied by the apology issued by a Catholic bishop who denied the Holocaust, saying the cleric must still clearly "distance himself" from the controversial comments.
Bishop Richard Williamson, who last month denied the existence of the Holocaust in an interview with Swedish television, was ordered Thursday to leave Argentina within 10 days, the Ministry of Interior said.
Pope Benedict XVI met Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, at the Vatican on Wednesday, both sides said in statements -- but that seems to be all they agree on.
A Holocaust denier Pope Benedict XVI welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church last month has been removed from his position as head of a seminary in Argentina.
Germany's Catholic bishops are calling for the expulsion of a bishop, recently brought back into the church by Pope Benedict XVI, after new reports that Richard Williamson denies the Holocaust.
Three tear gas canisters were fired Wednesday at the Vatican's diplomatic headquarters in Venezuela, the second such attack in less than three weeks, church officials and local media reports said.
The Vatican says it has ordered a controversial bishop who denies the Holocaust to "distance himself" from his views "in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner."
A woman who has been in a vegetative state for nearly 17 years was transferred to a private clinic Tuesday where she is expected to die -- ending what has been a lengthy and controversial legal fight.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI firmly reject denial of the Holocaust, a week and a half after the Vatican rehabilitated a bishop who denied the Nazis had intentionally murdered 6 million Jews.
Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers.
Pope Benedict XVI called for peace in the Middle East and an end to the exploitation of children in the homily he delivered early Thursday during the annual Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
When John Lennon remarked in 1966 that the Beatles were then "more popular than Jesus" his comments prompted outrage in the United States. But this weekend the Vatican's newspaper paid tribute to the band on the 40th anniversary of the release of the "White Album" in an article interpreted by some as a papal pardon for Lennon.
The road to sainthood for the Nazi-era Pontiff had been put on hold, but on the holiest of Jewish holy days, the current Pope appears to renew the process
A smooth-talking Italian businessman who once dated actress Anne Hathaway and claimed to have friends in high places at the Vatican is headed to prison after pleading guilty Wednesday in a Manhattan real estate fraud case
The Vatican says it wants to move the remains of Cardinal John Henry Newman to allow the faithful to pray to him. But gay rights activists see another reason
An Italian appeals court rules that a father can cut off life support to his comatose daughter in a case that has echoes of a U.S. controversy three years ago
The Vatican announced Thursday in a general decree that it will excommunicate anyone who would attempt to ordain a woman as a priest and the woman herself.
The Vatican insisted Friday that it is properly following Christian
tradition by excluding females from the priesthood as it issued a new
warning that women taking part in ordinations will be
excommunicated
Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday
Three victims of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church described an emotional, frank and ultimately hope-filled meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday.
Pope Benedict's first trip to the United States as pope begins Tuesday -- a five-day visit to Washington and New York, including a speech at the United Nations
Benedict XVI has decided to address the church's pedophilia crisis on his trip to the U.S. But will it be enough to satisfy disillusioned American Catholics?
The Vatican's No. 2 official says Pope Benedict XVI recognizes the damage and pain caused by the clergy sex abuse crisis and will seek healing during his U.S. trip
Pope Benedict XVI may not have the charisma of John Paul II but don't discount his staff -- especially Fr. Georg Gänswein, the gatekeeper-in-chief
Fifteen hundred years after the Roman Catholic Church introduced the original list of seven deadly sins, a Vatican official last week suggested an updated roster for a new age.
Pope Benedict XVI plans to meet with Muslim scholars and religious leaders this autumn at a Catholic-Muslim seminar in Rome, the Vatican said Wednesday.
The fast-tracking of the sainthood process for the nun who, as a child, encountered the Virgin Mary at Fatima reflects the importance of that apparition to Pope John Paul II
The Pope has revised a section of the old Latin liturgy that castigated the Jews. But it still calls for their conversion. Jewish leaders are up in arms
Pope Benedict XVI has canceled a planned visit to a prestigious Italian university after a protest by academics and students attacked his views on Galileo, the Vatican confirmed Tuesday.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George, a defender of Catholic orthodoxy with extensive experience in Rome, was elected Tuesday as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Da Vinci Code fans, get ready. The Vatican is about to release its official chronicle of the last years of the Crusader knights whose power has inflamed the imagination of conspiracy theorists for centuries
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