Religion In Italy

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 16 - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday made an appeal during his general audience to keep Sunday as "a day of rest, dedicated to strengthening family ties".

The pontiff referred to the May 15 celebration of the United Nations International Day of Families and underlined the need to balance "work and family life".

Speaking in Italian from St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict reminded the crowd that work "should not be an obstruction to family, but support and unite it".

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 15 - The Vatican dropped its suit against Benetton Tuesday after the Italian fashion house donated money to a Catholic charity and apologized for a November ad image manipulated to show Pope Benedict XVI kissing on the mouth Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, the imam who heads Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque.

"The Benetton group once again publicly acknowledges that it violated the sensibility of the faithful, and recognizes that the image of the Pope is to be respected and can be used only with the advanced permission of the Holy See," said Vatican Spokesman Federico Lombardi.

After being labeled blasphemous by the Church, the Italian fashion giant withdrew the image from its global anti-hate campaign, Unhate.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 10 - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday recognised as a martyr an Italian who helped about 100 Jews escape the Holocaust, who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and was among the first Italians to be recognised by Israel as 'Righteous Among The Nations'.

Odoardo Focherini (1907-1944), from Carpi near Modena, is now on the way to beatification, a step away from sainthood.

An inspector for a Catholic insurance company, in 1936 Focherini became president of the Catholic activist association Azione Cattolica.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 10 - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday named 12th-century German mystic nun and polymath Hildegard of Bingen a saint.

Hildegard is revered by Catholics, most of whom already thought she was a saint, but in fact two previous canonisation attempts had gone awry.

The pioneering Benedictine nun, who was the subject of a biopic by German director Margarethe von Trotta in 2009, has been the subject of sermons by the pope in recent years.

(ANSA) - Genoa, May 3 - A court in the northern Italian city of Genoa on Thursday sentenced a parish priest from the nearby town of Sastri Ponente, Father Riccardo Seppia, to nine years, six months and 20 days for child sex abuse and attempted induction of minors into prostitution.

The prosecution had requested a sentence of 11 years and eight months.

Seppia has been in jail since his arrest last May when investigators revealed recordings of tapped phone calls in which Seppia told a drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with minors.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 2 - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday recalled the beatification of his predecessor John Paul II on May 1, 2011.

Speaking in Polish at his general audience, Benedict told a large group of Poles who had come to Rome for the one-year anniversary: "Strengthened by his (John Paul's) heavenly intercession, be faithful to God, to the Cross and the Holy Gospel".

(ANSA) - Rome, May 2 - The head of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) on Wednesday downplayed the prospect of the national soccer team being involved in high-profile protests at Euro 2012 at the treatment of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in co-host nation Ukraine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reportedly considering boycotting Euro 2012 matches in Ukraine, after images appeared in the media last week showing bruises on the former prime minister's body that she said were the result of abuse by prison guards.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, April 25 - Pope Benedict XVI has set up a special commission to investigate the leaking of sensitive Church documents to the Italian media earlier this year, the Vatican said on Wednesday.

The documents included letters to the pope and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone from the Holy See's ambassador in Washington, Maria Vigano, who was the deputy governor of the Vatican City when they were written.

The letters contain allegations of corruption in the management of the Vatican City.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, April 23 - Pope Benedict XVI urged the international community on Monday to fight for an end to sex tourism and human and organ trafficking, particularly the exploitation of minors.

In a speech to mark the 2012 World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Tourism taking place in Cancun, Mexico April 23-27, the pontiff wrote that the "evils of sex tourism must be dealt with urgently since they trample upon the rights of millions of men and women, especially the poor, minors and handicapped".

(ANSA) - Campobasso, April 12 - A 78-year-old priest in the southern region of Molise was suspended from performing religious services on Thursday after disobeying orders from the diocesan bishop forbidding him to run for local political office.

Father Vincenzo Chiodi was issued a decree, delivered to his residence in Isernia Thursday morning, banning him from giving mass and administering sacraments in his parish or elsewhere in Italy.

Chiodi said that he would not accept the diocesan decree.

(ANSA) - Porto Garibaldi, April 11 - A priest outside Ferrara has denied giving first Holy Communion to a mentally disabled boy due to his condition.

Father Piergiorgio Zaghi said the 10-year-old boy's disability made him incapable of comprehending the mystery of the Eucharist, according to local press in the coastal town of Porto Garibaldi.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 17 - Freedom from hunger was a "right to life" that should not be the subject of speculation, Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday.

In a letter read at celebrations to mark World Food Day at the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome, Benedict called for greater humanity and concrete commitments to help developing countries.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, October 12 - Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his sadness about violent attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt and called on authorities to respect human rights.

"I am profoundly saddened by the episodes of violence that took place in Cairo last Sunday", Benedict said at the end of his general audience in St Peter's Square on Wednesday.

(ANSA) - Luxembourg, October 10 - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Monday expressed concern about the escalation of violence in Egypt and reports that Coptic Christians were fleeing the country.

"We heard about an exodus of Christians," Frattini said. "They are talking about 100,000 Christians who have reportedly left Egypt but we do not know if these numbers are accurate".

(ANSA) - Rome, September 27 - Italian politicians on Tuesday mulled a call from the country's top bishop for greater morality in public life.

Amid a welter of graft and sex scandals, many of them involving Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco on Monday said: "the air must be purified, corruption is like an octopus".

On Tuesday Deputy House Speaker Maurizio Lupi of Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party said the call "concerns all who have political responsibility, not just Berlusconi".