FaithWorld

(A Vatican two euro commemorative coin, December 16, 2004. REUTERS/Tony Gentile))

The Vatican has for the first time appeared on the U.S. State Department’s list of money-laundering centres but the tiny city-state is not rated as a high-risk country.

The 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report was made public on Wednesday and Washington’s list of 190 countries classifies them in three categories: of primary concern, of concern and monitored.

The Vatican is in the second category, grouped with 67 other nations including Poland, Egypt, Ireland, Hungary and Chile.

It was added to the list because it was considered vulnerable to money-laundering and had recently established programmes to prevent it, a State Department official said.

Cuba has not made any demands on Pope Benedict for him to condemn the 50-year-old U.S. embargo on the island when he visits next month but would welcome a new pronouncement if he decides to make it, Cuba’s ambassador to the Vatican has said.

In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters, Ambassador Eduardo Delgado Bermudez also said a possible meeting between Benedict and Fidel Castro was not on the programme “for now” but could not exclude it. He said Castro was in “excellent” overall health.

Delgado, 69, said Cuba saw the visit by Benedict as an opportunity to further deepen Church-state relations on the communist island, which have improved tremendously since the historic 1998 visit by Pope John Paul, who condemned the embargo several times.

(Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro at the XXI International Havana Book Fair in this picture released by Cuban website Cubadebate in Havana February 10, 2012. REUTERS/Courtesy of Cubadebate/Alex Castro)

Pope Benedict wants to see Fidel Castro on his trip to Cuba next month but the meeting will depend on the health of the communist country’s revolutionary leader, a senior Vatican official has told Reuters.  The official, speaking of the sidelines of a ceremony after the pope elevated new cardinals, said the status of the meeting was still pending.

“It will depend on his health,” the prelate said on Saturday. At present, the pope is only scheduled to meet Fidel Castro’s younger brother, President Raul Castro, 80, whose formal title is president of the Council of State and president of the Council of Ministers.

(Incoming new Cardinals at a consistory in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican February 18, 2012. REUTERS/Tony Gentile )

Pope Benedict, putting his mark on his Church’s future, on Saturday inducted 22 men into the exclusive group of cardinals who will one day elect one of their own to succeed him as leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics.

Among the most prominent in the group is New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is already being touted by some Vatican experts as a possible future candidate to become the first American pope. Benedict, who turns 85 in April and is showing signs of his age, elevated the men to the highest Church rank below him at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica known as a consistory.

(New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan leads a mass at St. John Lateran's Basilica in Rome February 15, 2012. REUTERS/Tony Gentile)

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who will become a cardinal this weekend, has said  that part of his new job will be to convince the Vatican that his city is not a modern-day version of the Biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah.

“New York seems to have an innate interest and respect for religion and I’m going to bring that up because I don’t like that caricature that New York is some neo-Sodom and Gomorrah” he told reporters after celebrating Mass on Thursday in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica.

(Saint Francis of Assisi tames the Wolf of Gubbio/Bybierre)

The Vatican newspaper on Wednesday suggested those responsible for revealing sensitive internal documents alleging corruption and a cover-up were irresponsible, undignified “wolves,” the latest twist in what has become known as “Vatileaks.” But an editorial in L’Osservatore Romano, while renewing criticism of some media handling of the scandal, also said that the Catholic Church should see the current image crisis as a chance to purify itself.

It was the latest chapter in a saga in which the Vatican has had to scramble to deal with what one spokesman called its own version of “Wikileaks” and what the Italian media have dubbed “Vatileaks.” It also coincided with the publication of new leaks about the Vatican bank.

The editorial was ostensibly to mark the 30th anniversary of the arrival in Rome from Germany of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected pope in 2005, to take up the powerful post as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal enforcer.

(Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican is seen during an heavy snowfall February 10, 2012. REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Call it Conspiracy City. Call it Scandal City. Call it Leak City. These days the holy city has been in the news for anything but holy reasons.

“It is a total mess,” said one high-ranking Vatican official who spoke, like all others, on the condition of anonymity.

(Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds up copies of the Koran (L) and the Bible as he addresses the 65th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York, September 23, 2010. REUTERS/Mike Segar )

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like Pope Benedict to visit Iran, Tehran’s ambassador to the Vatican has said.

“If the pope decides to come, we will welcome him in an excellent way, and, as far as the government is concerned, we will welcome him with enthusiasm,” Ali Akbar Naseri told reporters  on Wednesday. Benedict has a standing invitation to visit the Islamic Republic but has so far not accepted.

(Statues are seen covered in snow at St. Peter's Square in Vatican February 4, 2012. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi )

The Roman Catholic Church has sometimes been in denial over the sexual abuse of children by clergy but must now move forward to face up to the scandal, the Vatican’s top official for the issue said on Friday. In an interview with Reuters Television, Monsignor Charles Scicluna said he hoped a major symposium on pedophilia to be held next week in Rome would encourage Church leaders from around the world to listen more to the victims.

“Denial is a very primitive way of coping with very sad things,” said Scicluna, whose formal title is Justice Promoter. “I don’t think that denial will ever be a good response. I will not deny that we have been in denial. I think that people know that. But people need to know that we have to move forward from that very primitive coping mechanism. It doesn’t work,” he said.

(Road signs are seen in front of Saint Peter's Basilica from the Vatican Gardens at the Vatican May 31, 2010. REUTERS/Max Rossi )

A senior Vatican official who was transferred after he exposed a web of corruption begged to be allowed to continue his crusade and denounced a “vulgar and insolent” cleric behind a plot to destroy him, according to a leaked letter on Friday.

The letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who is now the Vatican’s ambassador to Washington, will increase consternation in the Vatican which has been put on the defensive by the growing scandal.