Pope Benedict Xvi, Catholics | featured news

More than 140 Catholic cardinals met Monday at the Vatican, where the process of selecting a new pope edged toward beginning. The cardinals gathered in the morning, but had not decided when the conclave to select Pope Benedict XVI's successor would start, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters.

After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the pontiff will end the Catholic Church's absolute ban on the use of condoms.

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".

Pope Benedict XVI was "deeply affected" by a meeting with victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, he said Wednesday, in his first public comments on the scandal in more than a month.

Pope Benedict said the sexual abuse scandal shaking Roman Catholicism showed the Church needed to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference by the pope to pedophilia in the priesthood.

The resignation of the bishop, John Magee, added to the fallout of a scandal that has rocked the Catholic church in Ireland and throughout Europe.

The sexual abuse of children is not just a "heinous crime" but a "grave sin" that offends God and wounds human dignity, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday after a two-day meeting with Irish Catholic bishops at the Vatican.

Pope lifts excommunication of four ultra-traditionalist bishops, angering Catholics, Jews.