Pope Benedict on Friday denounced the "powerful political and cultural currents" seeking to legalize gay marriage in the United States, where Maryland has just become the eighth state to allow it.
The pope's latest comments in opposition to homosexual marriage came in an address to bishops from several Midwestern states on a regular visit to the Vatican."Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage," he said.  read more »

The Catholic bishops of India briefed Pope Benedict XVI Sept. 2 on the level of anti-Christian persecution in their country.
“These have been a cause of worry and the Holy Father specifically asked also if there is violence,” said Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai in a Sept. 2 Vatican Radio interview.  read more »

VATICAN CITY:

God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said on Thursday.  read more »

AROUND much of the Western world, Christmas hymns are still echoing in the ears of happy holidaymakers, but elsewhere, Christians, for whom Christmas is one of the holiest days, are being persecuted.

In calling for religious freedom to be respected, the Pope appealed for reciprocity - full rights for Christians in Islamic states where laws ban them from practising their faith openly. Such a call does not sound unreasonable. No Christian state bans the practising of Islam, but the 3.5 million Christians of all denominations who live in the Gulf Arab region, the birthplace of Islam, are barely tolerated and any form of non-Muslim worship takes place in private.

While Australian troops are dying in Afghanistan in a war with Islamist forces, the Afghan Government which our forces are supporting seems incapable of implementing policies that respect fundamental principles guaranteeing real religious freedoms.Afghanistan is not alone. Islamic nations which regularly issue calls for the West to respect Islam and show tolerance for its traditions, rarely practise what they preach.A 200-page study of religious freedom reveals that Christianity is under siege in the Islamic world and that the dwindling number of Christians still living in Islamic nations remain among the most oppressed.
Pope Benedict, who released the study last month, called for all nations to guarantee freedom for all to practise their faith publicly, with authentic respect for each person.  read more »

Itan Wali, Pakistan -- In this village in Pakistan's Punjab province a tearful 12-year-old girl ponders if the Pakistani government will soon hang her mother.
"Whenever I see her picture I cry," Isham Masih informed. "I want my mother back. That's what I'm praying for."
This month a Pakistani court sentenced Isham's mother, 45-year-old Asia Bibi, to death, not because she killed, injured or stole, but simply because she was alleged to have said something.Prosecutors say Bibi, who is a Christian, broke Pakistan's strict blasphemy law by insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad, a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment according to Pakistan's penal code.The clerics tears of Joy for hanging the the innocent Christian women are in stark contrast to those shed by Bibi's daughter Isham, who wants her mother to live  read more »