VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Excluding truth and the transcendent from scientific debate and research has impoverished modern thought and weakened the intellect’s ability to understand reality, Pope Benedict XVI said.
True intellectual and scientific progress requires an openness to dialogue with opposing views, rather than settling with the “mere repetition” of what one already knows, he added.
The pope made his remarks May 3 in an address to faculty, doctors and students at Rome’s Sacred Heart University, one of the biggest Catholic universities in the world.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Arianne Gasser of Canton, Ohio, is proud to call herself a graduate student at a prestigious Catholic university, and she also is proud to call herself an atheist.
The pride she has in her atheist status is part of what inspired her to travel from the Philadelphia area, where she is enrolled at Villanova University, to Washington in March to join thousands of other atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers for the “Reason Rally,” an event that was billed as an assembly to unify secular people nationwide.
Carrying a sign that reads, “This is what an atheist looks like,” Gasser is part of a growing segment of Americans under the age of 30 who identify themselves as atheists or agnostics.
It’s a movement that concerns Catholic leaders worldwide, including Pope Benedict XVI.

CNS PHOTO
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With Easter flowers and blossoming trees still decorating St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI held his weekly general audience and encouraged Catholics to let the risen Lord into their hearts and to share his peace with the world.
As he did with the disciples after Easter, “even today the risen Lord can enter into our homes and hearts even if, sometimes, the doors are closed,” the pope said April 11.
“He alone can roll back the burial stone that man often puts over his feelings, relationships and behavior; stones that sanction death, division, hatred, anger, jealousy, mistrust, indifference,” Pope Benedict said.

PRINCETON, N.J. (CNS) — The South is the most religious region of the United States, according to a yearlong poll by Gallup.
Mississippi qualified as the most religious state in the nation, with 59 percent of its residents claiming to be “very religious.” Next on the list was the only non-Southern state among the top 12: Utah, where 57 percent of its people say they are very religious.
Placing third overall was Alabama, with 56 percent of its residents claiming to be very religious. The only state in the top 12 with a significant Catholic population was Louisiana, ranking fourth in Gallup’s poll, with 54 percent in the state saying they are very religious.

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) — Father Edward Flanagan was declared a “servant of God” during a Mass March 17 at Immaculate Conception Church at Boys Town as the Archdiocese of Omaha formally opened the cause for sainthood for the founder of the home for troubled youths.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Confession can help Catholics build lives filled with hope and holiness, which are needed for effective evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI said. “New evangelization, therefore, also starts from the confessional,” he told confessors and other participants attending a course sponsored by the Apostolic Penitentiary…

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — An authentic Christian faith is demonstrated through concrete acts of charity and those acts are an essential part of the Catholic Church’s new evangelization effort, Pope Benedict XVI told members of a Rome-based charity.

CNS PHOTO
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The family is the church’s best ally for raising a new generation resistant to materialism and committed to living out the Gospel, Pope Benedict XVI told bishops from Africa and Europe.
“Europe and Africa need generous young people who know how to take responsibility for their future,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — God is near even though it may seem like he does not hear people’s prayers or has abandoned his flock, Pope Benedict XVI said.
“Faced with difficult and painful situations, when God seems to not hear us, we must not be afraid to give him all of the weight we carry in our heart, we should not be afraid to cry out to him about our suffering,” he said.
Speaking at his weekly general audience Feb. 8, Pope Benedict continued his catechesis on prayer by highlighting Christ’s prayer from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

CNS PHOTO
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Strengthening one’s relationship with God must be the highest priority and most defining quality of religious life, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Celebrating vespers with members of religious orders Feb. 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day for Consecrated Life, the pope said the day was a way of bringing greater attention to the witness of faith of religious men and women worldwide.