News/International

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - It was a first, at least in modern times: In Rome, the centre of the Catholic world and the capital of Catholic Italy, a pope felt unwelcome to give a speech at the public university.

When Pope Benedict XVI cancelled his planned visit to La Sapienza University Jan. 17, it marked a setback in the pontiff’s difficult dialogue with the contemporary scientific and intellectual world.

{mosimage}ROME - Spanish-born Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the newly elected superior general of the Jesuits, called on the more than 19,000 members of his order to strengthen their service to the poor and those excluded from the benefits of economic globalization.

{mosimage}NAIROBI, Kenya - Church leaders, pastors and bishops are working to change the channel on the cycle of ethnic and political violence which has claimed nearly 500 lives since Kenya’s disputed national elections Dec. 27.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI appealed for an immediate end to ethnic violence in Kenya and called on political leaders to resolve the conflict there through "dialogue and democratic debate."

{mosimage}NAIROBI, Kenya - Following days of violence and death after the announcement of disputed election results, Kenya's Catholic bishops appealed to political leaders to make every effort to engage in dialogue to resolve the crisis.

{mosimage}THRISSUR, India - Catholic leaders in Pakistan and Pope Benedict XVI condemned the assassination at an election rally of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party.

{mosimage}Six months after Cyclone Nargis killed approximately 100,000 people in Myanmar, Catholic aid and religious organizations are still struggling with how to help people in a corrupt police state.

“Working in a police state? Well, it certainly means certain restrictions are in place,” wrote Jocelyne Dubois, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace program officer for Asia in an e-mail from Myanmar.

{mosimage}JERUSALEM - Jerusalem's Latin patriarch criticized the creation of a religious state of any kind in the Holy Land, saying that a Jewish or Islamic state would not be suitable for Christians.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Anything that threatens the traditional family threatens peace, because the family “is the first and indispensable teacher of peace,” Pope Benedict XVI said.

{mosimage}WASHINGTON - When Arizona Rep. Morris Udall sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1976, the fact that he was a Mormon, albeit an inactive one, was barely mentioned.