Stories from and

Does Pope Benedict XVI Read Science Fiction?

  15 February 2013

GV Author Filip Stojanovski, in a post on his Science Fiction Observer blog, highlights the work of Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, which is somewhat relevant for the recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: In 1995, I predicted next Pope would be Benedict XVI. In 2000, I predicted...

Vatican: A ”Historic” Tweet From Pope Benedict XVI

  30 June 2011

“Dear Friends, I just launched  NEWS.VA.Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI“: this is how Pope Benedict XVI engaged Twitter users on June 28, 2011, with his first tweet, descrived as “historic” by Vatican News website.

Brazil: Critic to Vatican's position on the death of Saramago

  5 July 2010

Leonardo Sakamoto criticizes [pt] Vatican's position on the death of portuguese Nobel Prize winner José Saramago. He says that “there are people celebrating the death of Saramago”, referring to an article which was published in Italy's main Roman Catholic  newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano”.

Brazil: Grandma Aggie, Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and the Pope

  28 October 2008

Lou Gold, a North-American blogger and nature-person turned “brasileiro’, blogs about [En] Grandma Aggie and the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, re-telling some of the adventures of these courageous indigenous ladies and their recent efforts to get the Pope to rescind the Papal Bulls that created the “right” to...

Brazil, USA: Sex, Crime and the Vatican

  18 April 2008

Antônio Mello, from blogdomello[Pt], blogs about “Sex, Crime and the Vatican” — a BBC documentary (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4)[En, subtitles in Pt] about children sexual abuse by catholic priests and the shelter provided by the Vatican to the accused ecclesiastics — and a Vatican internal document named Crimen...

Egypt: Vatican Visit Planned

  21 February 2007

A top Egyptian clergyman, Shaikh Mohammed Tantawi, has accepted Pope Benedict XVI invitation to visit the Vatican, reports Egyptian blogger Ibn Ad Dunya. He said the mini- summit “will hopefully help ease up some of the tension between the religions.”

China: To hell with the Vatican

  18 May 2006

Simon at Simon World looks at the Chinese government's decision this week to spurn the Vatican and appoint their own Bishops: “Naturally, this debate boils right down to control over Chinese civil society, and whether the Chinese government will tolerate any form of civil pluralism or alternate authority hierarchies in...

China: Catholics, coal, chemicals

  3 May 2006

China Confidential‘s Confidential Reporter gives a second look at rapidly-deteriorating relations between the Communists in Beijing and the Catholics in the Vatican, preceded with one long dire post: at least twenty-four dead in a coal mine collapse in the Northwestern province of Shaanxi this past weekend, and toxic dumping in...