The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

VATICAN CITY (CNS): At the start of what may be a sweeping reform of the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI has merged the leadership of four of the Vatican's councils under two presidents...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): While insisting women cannot be ordained priests, Pope Benedict XVI said it is right to discuss how women can be more involved in Church decision-making...

JERUSALEM (CNS): While Israeli leaders attempted to emphasise that a March 3 attack at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel was carried out by a troubled family with no political agenda, Latin rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah was quoted on Israeli television as saying the incident could not be separated from the atmosphere that incites such attacks against Arab targets...

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who visited Adelaide last month for the World Day of the Sick, is switched on to the Church's critical role in health care. CINDY WOODEN reports.

WASHINGTON (CNS): Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus, often regarded as the most powerful American in the Vatican during his 18 years as president of the Vatican bank, died on February 20 in the United States, apparently of natural causes.

VATICAN CITY (CNS): In his first set of major appointments, Pope Benedict XVI named 15 new cardinals...

DENVER (CNS): Although 98 per cent of pop culture references to intimacy today are about sex, intimacy is not about sex but about relationships - not just between husband and wife but between friends, Australian author Matthew Kelly told Catholic singles in the United States...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI presided over his first major meeting with top Roman Curia officials on February 13, an encounter that sources said focused on a proposal to reconcile with followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...

Papua New Guinea was an unknown frontier for Sr Mary Claude when she was sent there by her religious congregation 20 years ago. She tells STEPHANIE THOMAS how the experience has changed her life.