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March 8, 2013
VATICAN CITY - Everyone is curious about the cardinals.
Chinese students adapt to a new and different school system in Toronto
March 9, 2013
An ideal book for the Year of Faith
There was severe hardship but no famine in West Africa last year. Crops failed, locusts and other insects consumed farmers’ fields and at least 18 million people suffered through a food shortage.
VATICAN CITY - Like the rest of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, including the 5,100 bishops and 412,000 priests, the Pope exercises what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls his "baptismal priesthood" by participating in "Christ's mission as priest, prophet and king."
TORONTO - Regis College has a new resident. “Jesus the Homeless,” a sculpture cast in bronze depicting Christ as a homeless man, was installed outside the Jesuit school of theology at the University of Toronto on Feb. 23.
Updated 03/11/13 - Updates throughout ROME - Elections are conducted differently in every country. Brazil insists on electronic voting machines while Canada sticks with paper ballots. In North Korea there's just one candidate and in Kenya half the population is running.
March 10, 2013
Associate Editor Michael Swan is in Rome to report on the conclave. Selecting a pope is a world event, but that doesn’t mean it lacks a Canadian perspective. Here Swan looks at Canada and the conclave.
Mixed reactions on potential pope, but most agree he is a holy man
With just one more session of meetings to go, the cardinals who have gathered in Rome have decided to lock themselves in the Sistine Chapel and start the conclave to choose a new pope on Tuesday, March 12.
March 11, 2013
Updated 03/11/13 - Corrections ROME - The process of picking a pope so far has been something like a synod and something like a retreat, said Toronto's Cardinal Thomas Collins just before celebrating Sunday Mass at his titular church in Rome.
VATICAN CITY - During their last meeting before entering the conclave to elect a new pope, the world's cardinals heard a report on the Vatican bank and continuing efforts to comply with international standards to prevent money laundering and the funding of terrorism.
VATICAN CITY - Though the Vatican has become increasingly savvy with more modern forms of communication, it's still sticking with more primitive methods -- swirling smoke and tolling bells -- to announce whether a new pope has been elected.
Rome - Cardinals exited the final session of their pre-conclave discussions on the state of the Church just before 1:00 p.m. on Monday. Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet smiled and waved to reporters as he strolled through St. Peter's Square and then to lunch.
March 12, 2013
VATICAN CITY - The 115 cardinals participating in the conclave will know the identity of the new pope before the rest of the world, but their advance knowledge is likely to last for well over an hour, and even more in the unlikely event that the candidate they choose is not in the Sistine Chapel with them.
VATICAN CITY - Basilian Father Thomas Rosica is a busy man these days.
ROME - St. Peter's Basilica broke out into sustained applause Tuesday morning when hours before the start of the conclave Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the college of cardinals, thanked God for the "brilliant pontificate" of the 265th successor of St. Peter.
March 13, 2013
On March 13th, the world's cardinals in Rome elected Pope Francis following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The catholicregister.org has created a special, easy-to-view section to display the news from Benedict's last days, plus all the breaking stories from the Vatican as the cardinals choose the next pope.
ROME - Argentina has given the world a Pope.
March 14, 2013
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Latin Americans said the election of the first Pope from the region is recognition of the role the global South plays in the Church's future.