Brazilian cardinal urges church to lift celibacy rule
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SAO PAULO -- An influential Brazilian cardinal says the Roman Catholic Church should reconsider its ban on allowing priests to marry.
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu tells Africa's Anglicans to end an "obsession" with gay priests and same-sex unions.
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SAO PAULO -- Just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI denounced government-backed contraception in a visit to Brazil, the president unveiled a program yesterday to provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the plan will give poor Brazilians "the same right that the wealthy have to plan the number ...
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A top Vatican cardinal on Monday assailed what he called attempts to silence the Roman Catholic Church on issues of gender and marriage, blaming "powerful cultural, economic and political lobbies."
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VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict's personal preacher yesterday urged the pope to call a worldwide day of fasting and penitence to ask forgiveness for the clergy sexual abuse scandals.
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A Vatican preacher said on Friday in the presence of Pope Benedict that the Catholic Church should hold a worldwide day of fasting and penitence to ask forgiveness for its priestly sexual abuse scandals.
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The Church's opposition to gay marriage is "non-negotiable" and Catholic politicians have a moral duty to oppose it, as well as laws on abortion and euthanasia, Pope Benedict said in a document issued on Tuesday.
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MADRID, Spain  - The Catholic Church in Spain backtracked late Wednesday from a leading bishop's groundbreaking statement in support of condom use to fight the spread of AIDS, saying instead the church still believes artificial contraception is immoral.
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ROME (Der Spiegel) - Echoes of an old culture war have been rippling through Europe, as a bishop in Germany calls for Catholics to keep their kids away from a sex-education musical and the Vatican condemns a new gay-rights campaign in Italy. A children's musical about sex and babies, organized by the German government, has been touring the country since 2003 without noticeable friction. But now it's arrived in the city of Fulda, near Frankfurt, and the local bishop has called for a boycott. The Fairytale of Nose, Belly and Butt should be avoided by right-thinking Catholic families, according to Heinz Josef Algermissen, because in the Church's view, "explanations about sexuality belong in the home," and "can't be left to a theater troupe." The show's Web site begs to differ, saying the theory behind the project is that humans are "sexual beings from birth onward," and that children experience "smooching and touching genitals as no less fun or significant than tickling their big toe." Uproar in Italy, too This notion of human sexuality is no doubt as offensive to the Church as the idea that humans might be wired from birth to be straight or gay - which is the assumption behind an Italian ad campaign protested recently by the Vatican. The regional government of Tuscany has planned to use a photo of a newborn child wearing a hospital bracelet with the word "homosexual" as part of a publicity push to combat homophobia. "Sexual orientation," reads the tag line, which will appear on billboards throughout Tuscany, "is not a choice."  Italy's political right, along with some Catholic groups, want the campaign to be withdrawn. The Church's declared position is that homosexuality is a psychological disorder, not exactly a sin - although indulging in gay sex is a sin.
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Anglican leaders, striving to stop their  loose association of churches falling apart, urged North  American Episcopalians Monday to ban same-sex marriages and the  consecration of gay bishops.
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US Secretary of State Colin Powell - who is in Brazil - urges the country to allow UN nuclear inspections.
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Pope John Paul II on Monday called for more opposition to laws he sees as threatening families based on traditional marriage, urged a vast mobilization of the public worldwide to combat hunger and restated the Catholic church's ban on embryo stem cell use.
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Scotland's most senior Roman Catholic will use sermon to say politicians who support abortion should not remain full members of the church.
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Pope Benedict on Saturday called on China to lift restrictions on religious freedom that "suffocate" the Church and sow divisions among Catholics, in his most significant address on China to date.
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VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II kept up his campaign against gay marriage Saturday, telling the ambassador from Canada - where some provinces allow same-sex couples to wed - that such unions create a "false understanding" of marriage.    In past months, the pope urged authorities to stop approving gay marriages, saying that they degrade the true sense of marriage...
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Pope Benedict XVI pressed China on Saturday to respect religious freedom and the Vatican&#39;s right to appoint its own bishops, dismissing Beijing&#39;s nominees as &quot;illegitimate.&quot;
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By lifting restrictions on a rite out of favor since the 1960s, Benedict is signaling the limits on Catholic reform