ROME, May 22 (Reuters) – The earthquake that struck northern
Italy will affect production and export of some of the area’s
most internationally famous culinary delicacies – Parmigiano
Reggiano and Grana Padano cheeses.

National farmers’ group Coldiretti has estimated damage to
agriculture in the area, one of Italy’s most fertile and
productive zones, at more than 200 million euros.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict on Friday held out an olive branch to American Roman Catholic nuns, who are reeling from a stinging Vatican report that criticized them as being feminist and politicized.

“I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women (nuns) in your country,” he said in an address to visiting U.S. bishops.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – If you wanted to admire masterpieces of religious art by Titian, Raphael, Lorenzo Lotto, Guido Reni, Carlo Crivelli and other masters in museums around Italy’s central Marche region, it could cost you a few weeks of time and a hefty hotel bill.

Now, 50 paintings from 15 museums in the region rich in natural beauty and artistic heritage are on exhibition at the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Leaders of the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ religious order knew that their most famous priest had fathered a child for many months before they acknowledged it this week, a top Vatican official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The once influential religious order, still in crisis following revelations that its founder was a sexual abuser with two secret families, suffered another major blow on Tuesday when American Father Thomas Williams admitted to having fathered a child with a woman in Rome.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ Roman Catholic religious order suffered another major blow to its image on Tuesday when one of its most prominent members admitted to having fathered a child.

Father Thomas Williams said in a statement he was “truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation”.

VATICAN CITY, May 15 (Reuters) – Italian fashion firm
Benetton has agreed to make a donation to a Catholic charity to
end a legal dispute with the Vatican over an advertisement that
showed Pope Benedict kissing an imam on the lips, the Vatican
said on Tuesday.

Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Vatican had won
a moral victory, achieving its aim of defending the pope’s image
through legal means.

ROME, May 14 (Reuters) – Investigators attempting to resolve
one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries on Monday opened the tomb
of a mobster in a Rome basilica for clues to the disappearance
of a Vatican schoolgirl nearly 30 years ago.

Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, the feared head of Rome’s
Magliana gang which terrorised the capital in the 1980s, has
been linked to the disappearance in 1983 of Emanuela Orlandi,
the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee.

ROME (Reuters) – Her family name means “little severe one”, and Paola Severino means to live up to it in her crusade against judicial inefficiency which is helping to stifle Italy’s chronically weak economy.

Seemingly endless legal delays such as in settling commercial disputes are estimated to cost up to one percentage point in Italian GDP growth – not that the economy is growing at all now – and the justice minister wants to tell hesitant investors that she is serious about solving the problem.

SUMIRAGO, Italy (Reuters) – Mention the name Missoni, and most think of a fashion empire that revolutionized textile patterns, spawned the no-bra look on the catwalks, and is now a global brand that designs everything from sweaters to sheets to hotels.

But none of it would have happened had it not been for the 1948 London Olympics, where one kind of flame sparked another between Rosita Jelmini and Ottavio Missoni.