A rare Cuban crocodile met a bemused Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican on Wednesday, as Rome's Bio Park zoo celebrated its centenary with the eco-friendly pontiff.

A staff member from the zoo -- which

A 60-year-old bishop in Los Angeles has given his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI after it was disclosed he was the father of two teenage children, the Vatican said.

Benedict has accepted the resig

The Vatican said on Thursday that it was taking legal action to prevent the publication of a photo montage showing the pope kissing a leading imam as part of a Benetton advertising campaign.

The stat

The Benetton clothing company has withdrawn an ad showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an "unacceptable" provocation.

Benetton had said

A young Ukrainian women's rights activist sneaked past security and partially stripped in front the Vatican's Saint-Peter Basilica just after the Pope's Sunday Angelus.

The blonde activist, initially

Pope Benedict XVI has tweeted for the first time, announcing the launch of a Vatican news information portal.

Benedict's tweet on Tuesday read: "Dear Friends, I just launched News.va Praised be our L

The late Pope John Paul II moved a major step closer to sainthood on Sunday at a ceremony that drew about a million and half people, the largest crowd in Rome since his funeral six years ago.

The ceremony to beatify the late Pope, John Paul II, began in front of hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Vatican City's St. Peter's Square.

Beatification, or declaring a person to be 'blessed', i

Pope Benedict XVI on Friday said he had 'no answers' for a traumatised seven-year-old Japanese girl asking about the earthquake and tsunami in an unprecedented interview on Italian television.

"I als

Publishers on Tuesday released a controversial new book in which Pope Benedict XVI says for the first time he approves of condom use to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.