Category Archives: Vatican

Vatican enlists bots to protect library from onslaught of hackers

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Apostolic Library, facing 100 threats a month, wants to ensure readers can trust digitised records of its historical treasures

Ancient intellects are now being guarded by artificial intelligence following moves to protect one of the most extraordinary collections of historical manuscripts and documents in the world from cyber-attacks.

The Vatican Apostolic Library, which holds 80,000 documents of immense importance and immeasurable value, including the oldest surviving copy of the Bible and drawings and writings from Michelangelo and Galileo, has partnered with a cyber-security firm to defend its ambitious digitisation project against criminals.

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Mexico asks Pope Francis for apology for church’s role in Spanish conquest

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Mexico’s president says the Vatican should apologise for ‘reprehensible atrocities’ in colonisation 500 years ago

Mexico’s president has written to Pope Francis to ask for an apology for the Catholic church’s role in the oppression of indigenous people in the Spanish conquest 500 years ago.

The request was made in a two-page letter that also asked the Vatican to temporarily return several ancient indigenous manuscripts held in its library, ahead of next year’s 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

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Vatican official accuses Trump administration of exploiting pope

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Pope Francis reportedly declined to meet Mike Pompeo during his visit this week, citing closeness of US presidential election

A top Vatican official has accused Donald Trump’s administration of exploiting Pope Francis in the final stages of the US presidential election campaign.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, spoke at a conference on religious freedom on Wednesday organised by the US embassy to the Holy See during his visit to Italy.

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George Pell: why the cardinal is free to travel to Rome despite Australia’s Covid ban

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The cardinal is travelling for official Vatican government business, which means he does not need an exemption

Cardinal George Pell did not need to apply for a travel exemption to leave Australia because he is travelling to Rome for official Vatican government business.

The news that Pell was flying from Sydney to Rome on Tuesday generated criticism online with people questioning why the Australian government – which has banned its citizens from leaving the country as a Covid-19 precaution – granted him an exemption.

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Pope Francis: gossip is ‘plague worse than Covid’ – video

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Pope Francis strays from his prepared text to repeat his frequent complaint about gossiping within church communities and even within the Vatican bureaucracy. Francis did not give specifics during his weekly blessing, but went on at some length to say the devil is the 'biggest gossiper' who is seeking to divide the church with his lies

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Pope appoints six women to top roles on Vatican council in progressive step

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Former Labour minister Ruth Kelly is among the women who will oversee Vatican finances and address its cashflow problems

Pope Francis has appointed six women to oversee the Vatican’s finances including Ruth Kelly, the former Labour minister, in the most senior roles ever given to women within the Catholic church’s leadership.

The appointments mark the most significant step by Francis to fulfil his promise of placing women in top positions. Until now, the 15-member Council for the Economy was all male. By statute, the council must include eight bishops – who are always men – and seven laypeople.

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George Pell appeal: cardinal faces final high court decision – latest news

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Cardinal Pell’s child sexual assault conviction was upheld in the Victorian court of appeal. Now the high court will rule on whether he will stay in jail or walk free. Follow live updates

High court to decide cardinal’s fate

George Pell will not be in the court registry in Brisbane this morning. He is at Barwon Prison and will be informed of the judgment by his legal team.

We are now within 10 minutes of the judgment being delivered in Brisbane. We should have the news for you shortly after that.

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Unsealing of Vatican archives will finally reveal truth about ‘Hitler’s pope’

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Historians can now pore over secret files from the papacy of Pius XII, who has long faced accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser

New light will be shed on one of the most controversial periods of Vatican history on Monday when the archives on Pope Pius XII – accused by critics of being a Nazi sympathiser – are unsealed.

A year after Pope Francis announced the move, saying “the church isn’t afraid of history”, the documents from Pius XII’s papacy, which began in 1939 on the brink of the second world war and ended in 1958, will be opened, initially to a small number of scholars.

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Pope Francis decides against allowing married men to become priests

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Celibacy issue dividing church as it seeks to address shortage of clerics in remote areas

Pope Francis has decided against opening up the Roman Catholic priesthood to married men – a move that will please traditionalists but dismay those who argue that easing the celibacy rule would tackle a shortage of clerics.

Instead, an “apostolic exhortation” from the pontiff has focused on environmental damage after bishops from the Amazon highlighted the destruction of the region’s rainforests and exploitation of Indigenous people at a Vatican summit last year.

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‘Don’t bite!’: Pope jokes to nun at first audience since hand-slap video

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Pope Francis tells enthusiastic worshipper: ‘I’ll give you a kiss but stay calm’

Pope Francis jokingly told a woman not to bite him as he greeted pilgrims before his weekly general audience.

It was the pontiff’s first walkabout among worshippers after he angrily slapped the hand of a woman in response to her abruptly grabbing his arm on New Year’s Eve.

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Pope Francis apologises after slapping woman’s hand

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Pontiff admits ‘sometime even I lose patience’, referring to incident with pilgrim at Vatican

Pope Francis has apologised after slapping a woman’s hand as he greeted pilgrims at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve.

‌Francis lost his cool when the woman abruptly grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her just after he reached out to greet a child during a visit to the Vatican’s nativity scene on Tuesday night.

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Indignant Pope Francis slaps woman’s hand to free himself at New Year’s Eve gathering – video

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A visibly annoyed Pope Francis had to pull himself away from a woman in a crowd in St Peter's Square on New Year's Eve after she grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her. Pope Francis was walking through the square and greeting pilgrims. After reaching out to greet a child, the pope turned away from the crowd only for a nearby woman to seize his hand and pull her towards him. The abrupt gesture appeared to cause him pain and Francis swiftly slapped at her hand before pulling his hand free


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Three more altar boys say they were abused by priests in Vatican

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Italian TV show to reveal alleged abuse at Vatican’s youth seminary in 1980s and 90s

Three more former altar boys have claimed they were sexually abused by two priests in the Vatican, as the child abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church zeroed in for a second time on its headquarters.

The allegations of abuse in the Vatican’s youth seminary, to be set out in an Italian TV show on Sunday, date back to the 1980s and 90s when the boys were aged between 10 and 14.

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George Pell high court appeal: cardinal granted final challenge against child sexual abuse conviction

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Full bench of seven judges will decide on Cardinal Pell’s appeal, likely to be heard in 2020

Cardinal George Pell will have a final chance to overturn his conviction on historical child sexual abuse offences after the high court in Canberra agreed to hear appeal arguments in a special full court sitting.

A date for the appeal hearing is yet to be set but it is likely to be early in 2020, by the full bench of seven judges. Led by the high-profile silk Bret Walker SC, Pell’s legal team will argue that the majority of judges in Victoria’s court of appeal erred by finding in August that jurors were not unreasonable to believe the testimony of Pell’s victim.

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Pope apologises for theft of Amazon statue from Rome church

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Incident at end of Francis’s Amazon synod blamed on conservatives and ‘racists’

Pope Francis has apologised to Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a church close to the Vatican and tossed them into the River Tiber in a show of conservative opposition to the first Latin American pope.

Speaking as “the bishop of Rome”, Francis dismissed allegations that the wooden statues of naked pregnant women were pagan symbols and said they had been placed in the church “without any intention of idolatry”.

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John Henry Newman is first Briton to be canonised in 43 years

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Prince Charles described Victorian theologian as a ‘fearless defender of the truth’

Prince Charles described John Henry Newman as a “fearless defender of the truth” after the British cardinal became a saint in front of an estimated 20,000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square.

Newman, also a theologian, scholar and poet, was regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Victorian age and is the first Briton to be made a saint since 1976, when John Ogilvie was canonised by Pope Paul VI.

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Melbourne archbishop says George Pell innocent and questions if victim mistaken

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Peter Comensoli says he accepts victim was abused but wonders whether he was wrong in naming cardinal as abuser

Catholic archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli says he believes convicted paedophile Cardinal George Pell when he protests his innocence, and has speculated if the sole living victim got the name of his abuser wrong.

A day after Victoria’s court of appeal upheld Pell’s conviction for the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996, Comensoli said while he respected the courts, he also believed his friend and would continue to visit him in prison.

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Vatican invokes Cardinal George Pell’s ‘right to appeal’ after child sexual abuse conviction upheld

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Former Vatican treasurer, and most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual assault, maintains innocence after losing appeal

The most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, has lost his appeal against his conviction, but maintains he is innocent.

In a brief statement issued after the decision the Vatican reiterated that Pell maintained his innocence, and that it was now “Pell’s right to appeal to the high court”.

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Cardinal George Pell loses appeal on child sexual assault conviction – live

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Appeal dismissed by a majority of two to one for the 78-year-old who will remain in prison until October 2022. He was sentenced in March for sexually assaulting two choirboys in 1996

By the way - this is a huge testament to the value of the jury system. I will have so much to say about that. There is NO strong evidence judges alone are less biased or more correct than a jury of 12. #Pell.

Interesting that Morrison said the decision to strip Pell of his honours is independent to the government. Back In February my colleague Paul Karp was told that if Pell lost the appeal the prime minister would write to the Council of the Order of Australia recommending it review and revoke the honour, a decision made on its recommendation by the governor general.

Related: PM to strip George Pell of Order of Australia honour if cardinal loses appeal

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