Pope Benedict XVI blames TV, cinema for promoting secular lifestyles

October 2nd, 2009 NEVADA - Hindus and Jews were highly disappointed over Pope for not highlighting Roma apartheid during his September 26-28 visit to Czech Republic despite their repetitive pleas. Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B.

October 2nd, 2009 ROME - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has assured Pope Benedict XVI that his government would ensure that blasphemy laws are not used against Christians. During their meeting here, the Pope had asked Zardari to guarantee protection of minority Christians and ensure that a Gojra-like violence doesn't get repeated.

September 23rd, 2009 UK reports: Pope Benedict XVI to visit BritainLONDON — Pope Benedict XVI next year will make the first visit to Britain by a pontiff in decades, British media reported Wednesday. Journalists traveling to New York with Prime Minister Gordon Brown reported on the planned visit.

July 20th, 2009 LONDON - Police recently fined three nuns for crossing the speed limit as they rushed to Pope Benedict XVI's holiday home to see him after he met with a small accident. Sister Tavoletta, 56, was driving the Ford Fiesta at 120mph, while two other nuns were with her when shocked police pulled them over.

July 17th, 2009 AOSTA - Pope Benedict XVI was taken Friday to a hospital in the northwestern Italian town of Aosta for a check-up after he fell while on holiday in the Italian Alps, the Vatican's spokesman said. "It is nothing serious," the spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

July 17th, 2009 ROME - Currently on a summer break, Pope Benedict XVI has broken his wrist and twisted an ankle after slipping in the bathroom. Despite the agony, the Pope, 82, was able to walk to the casualty department of the hospital after arriving with his private secretary, Mgr Georg Ganswein on Friday.

July 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's staff called the owner of a religious gift shop in Philadelphia, Louis DiCocco, for advice as to what gift should be given to Pope Benedict XVI when the U.S. President meets him.

July 11th, 2009 NEW YORK - US President Barack Obama received a "great honor" on Friday when he met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican for the first time. "It's a great honor to meet you, thank you so much," Obama said as the men shook hands in a Vatican hallway.

July 8th, 2009 SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should not be pressuring Pope Benedict XVI to make Australian nun Mary MacKillop a saint, a prominent Jesuit priest said Wednesday. Frank Brennan joined other leading Catholics in criticising Rudd for arranging a meeting Wednesday with the pope at which Rudd said he would encourage the pontiff to have MacKillop canonised.

July 4th, 2009 Pope urges G8 leaders to act on crisisVATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has urged G-8 leaders meeting in Italy next week to rewrite global financial rules and defend the world's poor from the effects of the economic downturn, the Vatican said Saturday. In a letter to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who will chair the summit, Benedict appealed to leaders to "listen to the voice of Africa and of the countries that are less developed economically." Benedict said the economic crisis means there is a "real risk not only that hopes to emerge from extreme poverty will be dashed, but that populations that so far have benefited from a minimum of material well-being will fall into poverty." The pope called on the leaders to "reform the international financial architecture" to avoid the speculative operations blamed for the crisis and ensure public and private credit is made available for economic development and job creation, especially in poor regions.

May 22nd, 2009 LONDON - Former British Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher is to have a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in Rome next week. The former Prime Minister will fly to Italy today to stay with Carla Powell whose husband Charles was her foreign policy adviser at Downing Street.

May 19th, 2009 LONDON - French First Lady Carla Bruni has launched a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI accusing him of 'damaging' Africa with his approach to contraception. The 41-year-old singer and supermodel said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular".

May 13th, 2009 ROME - The Vatican has involved itself in a fresh public relations fiasco for seeking to rewrite the biography of Pope Benedict XVI by denying that he was ever a member of the Hitler Youth. Even though the 82-year-old German pontiff has admitted in numerous interviews that he was drafted unwillingly into the Nazi youth movement towards the end of the war, his spokesman came up with another version.

April 28th, 2009 LONDON - Heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has warned that the world risks the possibility of plunging into a "new Dark Age" unless urgent action is taken on climate change. During his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Charles said the global economic crisis was "nothing" compared with the "horror" of global warming.

March 27th, 2009 LONDON - The prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, has blamed Pope Benedict XVI for distorting science by saying that condoms are not the answer to HIV/Aids.he journal claimed that the Pope's recent comments that condoms exacerbated the problem of HIV/Aids were inaccurate and could lead to devastating consequences. In the address during his first visit to Africa, the Pope said that the "cruel epidemic" should be dealt via abstinence and fidelity instead of using condom.