Vatican, Pope | featured news

Pope Benedict XVI will keep the name Benedict XVI and become the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, putting an end to days of speculation on how the pope will be addressed once he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics on Thursday.

If evidence was ever needed that the next pope must urgently overhaul the powerful Vatican bureaucracy called the Curia, the scandal over Pope Benedict XVI's private papers is Exhibit A....

When he became pope at age 78, Benedict XVI was already the oldest pontiff elected in nearly 300 years. He's now 85, and in recent years he has slowed down significantly, cutting back his foreign travel and limiting his audiences.

Pope Benedict XVI marked Christmas Eve with Mass in St. Peter's Basilica and a pressing question: Will people find room in their hectic, technology-driven lives for children, the poor and God?...

Dismayed Vatican slams giant sculpture depicting John Paul outside Rome train station.

Pope Benedict XVI ushered in Christmas Eve with an evening Mass on Friday amid heightened security concerns following the package bombings at two Rome embassies and Christmas Eve security breaches at the Vatican the past two years....

Addressing more than 10,000 reverent, enthusiastic priests at the Vatican, Benedict compares celibacy to heterosexual marriage, which he calls the 'foundation of Christian culture.'

Standing before more than 10,000 Roman Catholic priests, Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday strongly reaffirmed the Vatican's commitment to priestly vows of celibacy, cutting off speculation that he might reconsider the issue in light of the church's sexual abuse scandal.

A crowd estimated by the Vatican at 150,000 filled St. Peter's Square on Sunday in a major show of support for Pope Benedict XVI over the clerical sex abuse scandal.

Pope Benedict said on Tuesday the crisis of sexual abuse of children by priests should make the Church acknowledge the "terrifying" truth that its greatest threat comes from "sin within the Church".

The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of a leading German bishop who is being probed for allegedly physically abusing minors and financial misconduct.