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By Paul Krugman $17.13
By Karen Connelly $11.90
$19
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The “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update correspondent made an appearance on KPFK radio’s “Pocho Hour of Power” to comment on popes past and present.
Posted on Mar 18, 2013
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 AP/Gregorio Borgia
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As The New York Times points out, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years.
Posted on Mar 13, 2013
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Angel Boligan, Cagle Cartoons, El Universal, Mexico City —
Posted on Mar 3, 2013
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 Screenshot
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In his final address as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI thanked the large crowd for its support and recalled joyous and difficult moments of his papacy.
Posted on Feb 27, 2013
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 Wikimedia Commons / valyag
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In giving up the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI was brave and bold. He did the unexpected for the good of the Catholic Church. And when it selects a new pope next month, the College of Cardinals should be equally brave and bold. It is time to elect a nun as the next pontiff.
Posted on Feb 18, 2013
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 AP/dapd/Daniel Maurer
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I don’t expect the Vatican to take my advice, which is only fair since I’ve been ignoring theirs my whole life.
Posted on Feb 12, 2013
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 Fabio Pozzebom / Agencia Brasil
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Pope Benedict’s resignation shouldn’t have surprised us as much as it did. As an institutionalist who believes in the Roman Catholic Church as the carrier of truth in a sinful world, he would worry a great deal about the impact of his own infirmities on the institution’s capacity to thrive.
Posted on Feb 11, 2013
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 AP/L'Osservatore Romano
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Whatever messages Pope Benedict tried to convey during his tenure were “drowned out” by the child abuse scandal and other controversies that rocked the Vatican during his reign, John Hooper writes at The Guardian.
Posted on Feb 11, 2013
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Patrick Chappatte, Cagle Cartoons, Le Temps, Switzerland —
Posted on Dec 14, 2012
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 Screenshot via the Pope's Twitter account
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After days of buildup, Pope Benedict XVI sent out his first message Wednesday to his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers.
Posted on Dec 12, 2012
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 Flickr / Gage Skidmore
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Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton top the USA Today/Gallup Poll lists of the most admired men and women in 2010. Obama has lost some love since last year, but still has more admiration among Americans than the rest of the top 10 combined. ... (more)
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 AP / Gerald Herbert
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In a Vatican Radio broadcast on Friday, one Rev. Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Holy See, announced that Pope Benedict XVI is ready to hold “new meetings” with victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members, but at least one victims’ group ... (continued)
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It’s no secret that Christopher Hitchens isn’t big on religion, but above and beyond his disdain of deity worship, he’s got some serious issues with the Catholic Church’s handling of both the child abuse claims made against clergy members ... (continued)
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 AP / Gerald Herbert
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Pope Benedict XVI’s official investigators at the Vatican have been inundated with claims of abuse by Catholic priests and nuns, all to be handled by a small team of 10 at the Holy See’s in-house operation. To offset some of the public discontent, the pope is writing ... (continued)
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 Wikimedia Commons / Open Clip Art Library
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Portugal is likely to become the sixth European nation—after Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands—to legalize gay marriage. The Portuguese government has proposed to change the country’s official definition of marriage to include same-sex unions.
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 youtube.com
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It’s kind of sweetly dorky, like your grandpa finally figuring out how to use his iPod or something, but the Vatican has apparently discovered the late hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur and has gone so far as to include one of his songs, “Changes,” among a lineup of eight tunes on “The Vatican’s Playlist” (which has its own MySpace page!).
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 AP / Gerald Herbert
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It’s been nearly 500 years since King Henry VIII split with the Vatican and formed the Church of England, and now Pope Benedict XVI has given Anglicans a way to come back to the Catholic fold while keeping some of their own traditions.
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 Warner Brothers Pictures
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Although the pope and other prominent Christians have registered their disapproval of the Harry Potter franchise in the past, the newest film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” is getting glowing reviews from fellow members of their fold. It’s not quite on the level of WWHPD? but some are noting the teenage wand-wielder’s similarities to a certain other powerful young man from a very popular book.
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 highvolumemedia.com
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The Vatican is about to become a more Web-savvy institution, according to Benedict XVI. The pope issued a public statement Friday acknowledging that the Holy See failed to investigate the background of Holocaust-denying British Bishop Richard Williamson before formally welcoming him back into the Church’s good graces in January.
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 AP photo / Alessandra Tarantino
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By Robert Fisk — Now a lot of folk will go along with the line that the Holy Father is so stupid—so utterly out of touch with Planet Earth—that he has no idea how disastrously his actions are received. Hmmm. Well, I wonder.
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 topnews.in
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The powers that be at the Vatican (at least the earthly variety) are even more upset with Bishop Richard Williamson now that he has apologized. After drawing outrage last month when he claimed that no Jews died in gas chambers during the Holocaust, he made an apology this week. The papacy found it inadequate, to say the least.
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The Central Council of Jews in Germany has come to an impasse with the Roman Catholic Church after Pope Benedict XVI reintegrated four bishops into the Vatican’s fold, including British cleric Richard Williamson, who has taken a revisionist stance on the Holocaust in recent public statements.
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 excelsiorfile.blogspot.com
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The Virgin Mary is becoming a stage diva, and she’s counting Pope Benedict XVI as one of her biggest fans. A pope-endorsed musical, “Mary of Nazareth,” is about to debut at the Vatican’s own concert hall later this month. By definition, this’ll hardly be a racy production, but—bonus!—Alma Manera, the performer picked to play Jesus’ mother, was once a Miss Italia contestant!
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 AP photo / Jeff Zelevansky, pool
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Pope Benedict XVI’s latest major stop on his U.S. tour took him to the United Nations, where he held forth about the need to prioritize human rights for all and pointed out how the majority of power to impact global events still remains in the hands of very few key players.
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 AP Photo / Luca Bruno
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In a move that strikes some as proprietary ecclesiastical politics, the Vatican released a statement Tuesday claiming that the Catholic Church is the only Christian organization eligible to use the term church to describe itself.
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