Religion News

Berlin - A German vintage car enthusiast set off Monday in a 1958 Polish-made car that belonged to John Paul II before he became pope, headed for Rome to honour his canonisation.

- While he may not be widely known internationally, Pope John XXIII holds a special place in the heart of many Italians and nowhere more so than in his homeland of Bergamo where he was born into a farming family.

Washington - A gunman shot three people dead at a Jewish community center and a retirement community in Kansas, drawing widespread condemnation and consternation on the eve of Passover.

- Pope Francis kicked off weeklong observances leading up to Easter by celebrating Palm Sunday mass with some 100,000 pilgrims in a sun-drenched St Peter's Square on Sunday.

The Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster is now accepted as an official religion in Poland after a 2013 ruling was overturned on Tuesday.

Bangui - African peacekeepers escorted more than 1,000 minority Muslims fleeing attacks by mainly Christian militias in the Central African Republic to neighbouring Chad, police told AFP on Saturday.

- Pope Francis on Friday personally asked forgiveness for child sex abuse by priests -- the first time he has made such an apology since being elected last year."I feel compelled...

Versailles - A priest in an ultra-conservative Catholic sect has been charged with rape and torture for acts allegedly committed during exorcisms involving three schoolteachers.

- Pope Francis aims to unite conservative and reformist strands of Catholicism with the first canonisation of two popes this month -- an impressive masterstroke that has already stirred dissent in some quarters.

Manila - Single mother Christina Bantasan clutched her baby in the shadows of a sprawling Philippine slum, wishing that a controversial birth control law had come earlier so she could have planned her future better.