Angry Students Block Pope Visit

Heretic remains a touchy subject in Catholic Church

(NEWSER) - Galileo Galilei is riling the Catholic church yet again, the Wall Street Journal reports, as an anonymous donor has offered to pay to erect a statue in the Vatican of Catholicism’s most famous heretic. But though the church has come around on science, Galileo remains a touchy subject. He’s “like a Mexican soap opera,” said one Vatican official. “It never ends.” More»

(NEWSER) - Italy has legalized the abortion drug RU-486, drawing the ire of the Vatican, which threatened to excommunicate doctors who prescribe the medication and women who take it. A church official said using the pill is "a sin in a moral and juridical sense," but a politician who is also a gynecologist hailed yesterday's decision, telling ANSA, "It's above all a victory for Italian women, who from today have more choice." More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama told Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that he would make every effort to reduce the number of abortions in the US, according to a Vatican spokesman. Bioethics and life issues were the focus of the men's 40-minute talk yesterday. The pontiff gave the president a booklet explaining the church's opposition to abortion and stem cell research, Reuters reports. More»

Pontiff's visit comes as 65,000 remain homeless

(NEWSER) - Pope Benedict has arrived in central Italy to visit survivors of the earthquake that killed nearly 300 people earlier this month and left 65,000 homeless, reports the BBC. The pontiff began his visit with greetings to victims in a village where all the buildings have become uninhabitable; later today, he will visit a dormitory where several students were killed. More»

(NEWSER) - Italy today held a mass state funeral for 205 of the people killed in the Abruzzo earthquake and observed a national day of morning, the BBC reports. Dozens of coffins and thousands of people gathered at the open-air service at a police training base outside the damaged city of L’Aquila to hear the mass, which was performed by the Vatican’s second-highest ranking priest, Cardinal Tarcisio. More»