ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict called for perseverance in the face of an economic crisis that has led to hardship and rising unemployment across Europe as he presided over a procession around Rome’s Colosseum to mark Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and death on Good Friday.

The German pontiff, who turns 85 this month, stood before thousands of people holding candles at the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) march and listened to reflections on family unity that lamented divorce, abortion and infidelity.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy is in recession, final data confirmed on Monday, underscoring the difficulties facing Mario Monti’s technocrat government as it grapples with a shrinking economy dragged down by austerity measures and a debt crisis.

Italy’s economy shrank 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, following a 0.2 percent decline in gross domestic product in the third quarter.

ROME, March 12 (Reuters) – Italy is in recession,
final data confirmed on Monday, underscoring the difficulties
facing Mario Monti’s technocrat government as it grapples with a
shrinking economy dragged down by austerity measures and a debt
crisis.

Italy’s economy shrank 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of
2011, following a 0.2 percent decline in gross domestic product
in the third quarter.

ROME (Reuters) – Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco on Wednesday urged Italians not to resist a labour market reform Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has said he will present by the end of the month with or without the support of the country’s powerful unions.

Visco said a better functioning labour market that embraces changes in technology, markets and businesses had to go hand in hand with other structural reforms such as deregulation.

ROME (Reuters) – Members of the English parliament wrote to Pope Clement VII in 1530 urging him to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife so the king could marry Anne Boleyn, according to Vatican documents on display to the public for the first time.

In the large parchment letter, hung with over 80 pendant seals attached with red silk ribbon, they alluded to the “extreme remedies” they could pursue if their request were refused.

ROME, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Billionaire philanthropist
Bill Gates told the United Nations’ hunger-fighting agencies
they were inefficient and urged their leaders on Thursday to set
new targets, redirect resources and turn to technology to make
better progress.

The Microsoft founder’s $34 billion foundation, one of the
world’s most generous, said the three Rome-based agencies should
set a goal for raising farm productivity and introduce a system
of scoring states publicly for their efforts to reduce poverty.

ROME (Reuters) – Maria Grazia Fera was looking forward to getting back to work after her first child was born. But three months into her maternity leave, her temporary contract as a teacher for the disabled expired and suddenly, her job was gone.

More than two years later, the 31-year-old is still out of work and often passed over by potential employers now she has a small daughter.

ROME, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Italian industrial output
rose unexpectedly in December, data showed on Friday,
contrasting with falls in German and French output and giving
some analysts hope that the pace of a new recession for Italy
may ease in the first quarter.

National statistics office ISTAT said Italy’s output rose
1.4 percent from the previous month, way above a forecast 0.5
percent fall in a Reuters’ poll of analysts and accelerating
from a 0.3 percent rise in November.