Religion In Italy

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 30 - Pope Benedict XVI received a paddle from the president of South American republic Suriname Friday.

"It is for you as successor to Peter the fisherman," said Suriname President Runaldo Ronald Venetiaan as he gave the pontiff the long, painted and hand-carved paddle, used for traditional canoes.

"You need firmness to use it," a smiling Benedict replied.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 18 - Pope Benedict XVI turned into an impromptu art history professor on Wednesday, lecturing faithful on the importance of Europe's Medieval Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.

Addressing the crowd at his weekly general audience, the German pontiff likened the cathedrals to "stone Bibles" which through sculptures and paintings illustrating episodes from the Gospel offer Christians a "privileged route" to draw closer to God.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 18 - Lower House Speaker Gianfranco Fini on Wednesday voiced his support for the people of Tibet and their exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Fini welcomed the Dalai Lama for a private meeting at his offices in the Chamber of Deputies, which on Wednesday hosted the fifth World Conference of Parliamentarians for Tibet.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 18 - The Vatican is commemorating the extraordinary life of a 16th-century Italian mathematician and missionary who settled in China, with a new exhibition marking 400 years since his death.

The event at the Vatican Museum pays tribute to Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a Jesuit priest and academic who spent most of his adult life in China and eventually became a member of the court of Ming Emperor Wanli.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 18 - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday called for the respect of the rights and dignity of children in an appeal marking the United Nations Children's Day later this week.

"My thoughts reach out to all the children in the world, especially those living in difficult conditions and suffering because of violence, abuse, illness, war and famine," said the German pontiff.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 17 - Pope John Paul II's beatification process has taken the last formal step and now needs just Pope Benedict XVI's approval, Vatican sources said on Tuesday.

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has given the go-ahead by approving the late pope's 'heroic virtues' and the paperwork will now be sent to his successor, the sources said.

The Polish pope's beatification is expected to take place sometime next year, perhaps in April, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of his death.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 17 - The Turin shroud, revered by many as the holiest relic of Christ, will be placed on public display from April to May, for the first time since 2000, the Italian Bishops Council (CEI) said on Tuesday.

Believers say the shroud wrapped the body of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion.

Pope Benedict XVI has never commented on the authenticity of the relic but the Vatican has announced that he will visit Turin on May 2 to see it along with other pilgrims.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 17 - The Catholic Church in Italy is to issue new rules on cremation that ban scattering ashes outside cemeteries, a statement from the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) said Tuesday.

Italians have traditionally shied away from cremation amid Church disapproval of the practice and a lack of local-government authorisation in most of Italy.

But there has been a rise in recent years and last month Turin caused a flap by saying it was going to allow citizens to scatter ashes in the River Po.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 17 - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi weighed in on Italy's crucifix debate Monday night, telling an invited audience of 200 young women that the Red Crescent symbol of Islam was not imposed in Libya.

"In Libya we do not oblige anyone to put up the Red Crescent," Colonel Gaddafi told the second such audience recruited from a Rome hostess agency in his two nights in Rome for a world food summit.

Italy was recently rapped by the European Court of Human Rights for having crosses in its classrooms.

Gaddafi, who is known for giving long answers, was unusually brief in replying to questions from the women, who were a different crowd from the first night in his traditional giant tent.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 17 - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi weighed in on Italy's crucifix debate Monday night, telling an invited audience of 200 young women that the Red Crescent symbol of Islam was not imposed in Libya.

"In Libya we do not oblige anyone to put up the Red Crescent," Colonel Gaddafi told the second such audience recruited from a Rome hostess agency in his two nights in Rome for a world food summit.

Italy was recently rapped by the European Court of Human Rights for having crosses in its classrooms.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said that "opulence and waste" were unacceptable when there was so much hunger in the world.

Giving a keynote speech here at the World Summit on Food Security, organised by the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Benedict criticised what he defined as "egotism and speculation" on food as well as "nutritional models aimed only at consumption".

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - The Vatican on Friday urged the United States to lift its embargo against Cuba and called on Havana to loosen restrictions against the Catholic Church.

Speaking to Vatican radio after his return from a visit to Cuba, the head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, urged US President Barack Obama to lift economic sanctions against the island.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 13 - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday will address the World Summit on Food Security at the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and afterwards will greet one by one the heads of state attending the summit's inauguration, the Vatican confirmed on Friday.

This will be the first time that the pope has visited FAO headquarters - where his predecessor John Paul II attended three events in 1979, 1992 and 1996 - although he has always sent a message to important FAO events.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 12 - Pope Benedict XVI regularly surfs the Internet and makes frequent use of email, the Vatican's 'communications minister' said Thursday.

Speaking as a four-day conference on web communications opened at the Vatican, Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli said the German pontiff was a big fan of technology.

''He sends personal emails and greatly appreciates all the new technologies,'' said Celli.

''He doesn't have a papal email address [...] and he cannot reply personally to all the millions of messages that arrive in the Vatican inbox.

(ANSA) - Assisi, November 12 - Italy's highest churchman on Thursday urged the European Union to take a stance on a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights ordering the removal of crucifixes from school classrooms.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who heads the Italian Council of Bishops, said he hoped the EU would make ''an institutional statement on the merits of the ruling'' by the Strasbourg court, which is not part of the EU.