ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict confirmed Monday he would make the first papal visit to Britain since 1982 while criticizing legislation that could force churches to hire homosexuals or transsexuals as a violation of “natural law.”

In a speech to bishops from England and Wales, Benedict said he looked forward to witnessing at first hand the faith of Catholics in England and Wales during “my forthcoming Apostolic visit to Great Britain.”

It was the first time the pope publicly confirmed the trip. He did not give a time but church officials said it is expected to take place in September and will include a visit to Scotland, which has its own Catholic bishops’ conference.

A statement issued on behalf of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict confirmed Monday he would make the first papal visit to Britain since 1982 while criticizing legislation that could force churches to hire homosexuals or transsexuals as a violation of “natural law.”

In a speech to bishops from England and Wales, Benedict said he looked forward to witnessing at first hand the faith of Catholics in England and Wales during “my forthcoming Apostolic visit to Great Britain.”

It was the first time the pope publicly confirmed the trip. He did not give a time but church officials said it is expected to take place in September and will include a visit to Scotland, which has its own Catholic bishops’ conference.

A statement issued on behalf of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict confirmed on Monday he will visit Britain, the first papal visit since 1982, and criticized legislation that could force Churches to hire homosexuals or transsexuals as a violation of “natural law.”

In a speech to bishops from England and Wales, Benedict said he looked forward to witnessing at first hand the faith of Catholics in England and Wales during “my forthcoming Apostolic visit to Great Britain.”

It was the first time the pope had publicly confirmed the trip. He did not give a time but Church officials said it is expected to take place in September and will include a visit to Scotland, which has its own Catholic bishops’ conference.

It will be the first papal visit to Britain since Pope John Paul II visited in 1982.

ROME (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, in a major speech to Italy’s parliament, attacked wartime Pope Pius XII Wednesday for his “silence” during the Nazis’ mass killings of Jews.

Wiesel, an Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, gave the emotional speech on World Holocaust Remembrance Day — also the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

At about the same time German-born Pope Benedict, who has defended the actions of his wartime predecessor, was also speaking about the Holocaust at his general audience at the Vatican across the River Tiber.

“Whether at the lowest level of politics or the highest level of spirituality, silence never helps the victims. Silence always helps the aggressor,” Wiesel told parliamentarians and top officials including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

ROME (Reuters) – The late Pope John Paul flagellated himself regularly to emulate Christ’s suffering and signed a secret document saying that would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill, a new book shows.

The book, called “Why a Saint? was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to Roman Catholic sainthood for John Paul. It includes some previously unpublished documents.

John Paul, who died in 2005, was sick and suffering in several periods of his papacy. He was shot and nearly killed in 1981, he underwent several operations, including one for cancer, and suffered from Parkinson’s disease for more than decade.

The book, which was published Tuesday, reveals that even when he was not ill, he inflicted pain on himself, known in Christianity as mortification, so as to feel closer to God.

Vatican and new media on pope2you.net, 22 May 2009/Jonathan Bainbridge

For God’s sake, blog! Pope Benedict has told priests, saying they must learn to use new forms of communication to spread the gospel message.

In his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Communications on Saturday, the pope, who is 82 and known not to love computers or the internet, acknowledged priests must make the most of the “rich menu of options” offered by new technology.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – For God’s sake, blog! Pope Benedict told priests on Saturday, saying they must learn to use new forms of communication to spread the gospel message.

In his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Communications, the pope, who is 82 and known not to love computers or the internet, acknowledged priests must make the most of the “rich menu of options” offered by new technology.

“Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources — images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites — which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis,” he said.

Priests, he said, had to respond to the challenge of “today’s cultural shifts” if they wanted to reach young people.

ROME (Reuters) – A decade after his death, Italians are split over whether to commemorate Prime Minister Bettino Craxi as a great statesman or a Machiavellian master of corruption who died in exile as a fugitive.

Craxi, a Socialist who was prime minister from 1983 to 1987 and party leader until he fled Italy for Tunisia in 1994, was a close friend of current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who attended official commemorations in the Senate on Tuesday.

But Craxi, a symbol of the “Tangentopoli” (Bribesville) bribery scandals in the 1990s which toppled the old guard, is as divisive in death as he was in life.

“This beatification of a convicted criminal in an institutional setting like the Senate is really shameful,” said Felice Bellisario, a parliamentarian of an opposition party headed by Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-graft magistrate.

Rome synagogue, 7 July 2008/Jensens

Deep splits have appeared in Italy’s Jewish community just before Pope Benedict makes his first visit to Rome’s synagogue, with at least one senior rabbi and one Holocaust survivor announcing a boycott.  The row revolves around the pontiff’s decision last month to raise nearer to sainthood wartime Pope Pius XII, who many Jews say did not do enough to help Jews facing persecution by Nazi Germany, a position the Vatican rejects.

Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni has decided to go ahead with the visit and told Reuters he believed only God could judge Pius XII.

Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, president of Italy’s rabbinical assembly, announced he will not attend the visit on Sunday to protest at what he said were a series of Vatican moves seen as disrespectful to Jews, including the pope’s decision to start the rehabilitation process last year of traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson, who denied the extent of the Holocaust.

Pope John Paul meets Mehmet Ali Agca in Rome's Rebibbia prison on 27 Dec 1983/Vatican photo

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to kill Pope John Paul in 1981, is due to be released from prison in Turkey on January 18.  In a rambling statement issued by his lawyers on Wednesday, he called for a “new American Empire” championing peace and democracy.

Here are some facts about Agca and the enigmatic path that took him from life as a small-time gangster in Turkey to the would-be assassin on St. Peter’s Square.

* Early Days