Pope releases peace doves on Armenia-Turkey border

VBK-REUTERS_2910045fPope Francis on Sunday released peace doves on the Armenia-Turkey border in a gesture of reconciliation as Ankara slammed the pontiff for denouncing the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as “genocide”.

Standing on a terrace of the Khor Virap monastery, Pope Francis and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church Kareki- II released the two white birds in the direction of Mount Ararat — the Biblical final resting place of Noah’s Ark — now in modern-day Turkey. MORE

Pope Francis thinks Catholics should apologize for being Catholic.

pope-gayFor two  millennia the catholic church has taught that sin leads to eternal death it has been obsessed with Jesus Christs passion (what Catholics call his suffering and death on the cross) and the reason he suffered was for our sins so we could have eternal life.  This means sin has always been seen inside the church as an outrage to god and the proof has always been Jesus Passion for us on the cross.

In every Catholic church you will find the stations of the cross and a crucifix. MORE

The astonishing secret history of the Pope who fought Hitler

.- Pope Pius XII’s secret support for the attempted overthrow of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is the subject of a new book that draws on wartime documents and interviews with the American intelligence agent who wrote them.

“This book is the truth – as best I could establish it in a number of years of research – about the Pope’s secret operations in World War II,” historian Mark Riebling told CNA earlier this year. MORE

Catholic school in Italy fined for firing gay teacher

trentoROME (RNS) A Catholic school in northern Italy has been found guilty of discriminating against a gay teacher in a case sparked when a nun quizzed the employee on her sexual orientation.

The Daughters of the Sacred Heart Institute in Trento was ordered to pay 25,000 euros ($28,500) to the female teacher, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported on Thursday (June 23).

In addition, the school was told to pay 1,500 euros each to a labor union and civil rights association. MORE

Peppone at the Vatican

“Peppone” MélenchonThe June 9 issue of Le Figaro informs us that Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the founder of the Left Party in France—to the left of the Left—would like to stay at the Casa Santa Marta where Pope Francis resides, because he has “some things to tell him”. Almost as though the Communist mayor of Brescello wanted to stay at Don Camillo’s rectory….

And what would “Peppone” Mélenchon tell the Pope? What he already wrote in mid-April, when the latter returned from Lesbos with twelve Muslim migrants: “Long live the Pope! … I felt so close to the idea that the Pope then exemplified in bringing home twelve refugees. Human fraternity is a practical value and a political virtue. Definitely, the Church has really elected a Christian this time! … The Pope corners everyone spectacularly, directly and magnificently.” MORE