Pope Benedict XVI formally created 24 new cardinals on Saturday amid cheers in St Peter's Basilica, bringing a mostly Italian group into the elite club that will eventually elect his successor.

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday named India-born Archbishop Francis Assisi Chullikatt as the Holy See’s top envoy to the UN.

Preoccupied for months by the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Pope on Wednesday shuffled the Vatican bureaucracy before heading off on vacation.

The Vatican said on Tuesday it would prove it cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of a priest at the centre of a sexual abuse scandal in the United States.

Pope Benedict XVI on Friday begged for forgiveness for the paedophile priest scandals rocking the Roman Catholic in his clearest apology yet for the scourge.

The Vatican on Monday named prominent Churchmen to lead its official inquiry into sexual abuse of children by clergy in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland.

The Vatican’s investigator in the Church’s paedophilia scandal on Saturday led prayers at St. Peter’s Basilica for victims as well as priests who abused them, ANSA news agency reported on Saturday.

A crowd estimated by the Vatican at 150,000 filled St. Peter’s Square on Sunday in a major show of support for Pope Benedict XVI over the clerical sex abuse scandal.

May 3: The Vatican’s decision to assume leadership of the scandal-plagued Legi-onaries of Christ won acceptance on Sunday from the order itself and praise from those who abandoned the conservative mov