VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican decree established new statutes and norms for Caritas Internationalis, giving Vatican offices, including the Secretariat of State, greater authority over the work of the Vatican-based umbrella group of Catholic aid agencies.
The decree strengthens the roles Vatican offices and the pope play in working with the charity confederation, including naming and approving new board members and approving its texts, contracts with foreign governments and financial transactions.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Trustees of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, which donates millions of dollars to papal charities each year, spent two hours at the Vatican bank April 20 and came away convinced that the institution’s bad press was undeserved, said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington.
“I found it very reassuring,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service in Rome. “The effort of the Holy See to be transparent is demonstrable.”

CNS PHOTO
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, met Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials April 11, seeking greater collaboration to prevent HIV infection among children by 2015.
Preventing mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus and keeping children free from HIV is an achievable goal, Sidibe told the pope, according to a press release from UNAIDS.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — During a Mass in which priests renew their promises of fidelity to Christ, Pope Benedict XVI firmly criticized dissent from church teachings and disobedience of God’s will as illegitimate pathways toward reform and renewal.
Surrounded by more than 1,600 priests, bishops and cardinals, the pope cautioned against calls for women’s ordination, saying such campaigns seemed more “a desperate push” to fulfill one’s own preferences rather than a sincere attempt to conform one’s life more closely to Christ.

CNS photo/Paul Haring
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has established a commission to investigate a series of leaks of letters exchanged among Vatican officials and between the officials and the pope himself. Archbishop Angelo Becciu, Vatican substitute secretary of state, said March 16 that the papal commission would try “to shed light on the whole affair,” while a Vatican tribunal would look into taking legal action against those who gave the documents to reporters, and the Vatican Secretariat of State would carry out an administrative review of every Vatican office.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church condemns violence and discrimination against homosexual persons, but recognizing same-sex unions as a marriage devalues the unique identity and social contributions of the union of a man and a woman, a Vatican official told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The majority of the world’s fertility specialists have spent so much time and effort trying to promote and perfect in vitro fertilization that they have wasted resources and time that could have been used to find ways to prevent and treat infertility, a U.S. physician told a Vatican audience.
“Infertility is a symptom of an underlying condition,” and too many physicians do not even attempt to find the cause and treat it; they simply recommend in vitro fertilization, said Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and director of the Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Neb.

ATICAN CITY (CNS) — The take-away message from a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse was clear: Victims, truth and justice come first. And the church can no longer wait for a crisis to erupt before it begins to address the scandal of abuse.
“We do not need to wait for a bomb to explode. Preventing it from exploding is the best response,” said Philippine Archbishop Luis Tagle. The archbishop of Manila was one of more than 200 bishops, cardinals, priests, religious and laypeople who attended a landmark symposium Feb. 6-9 in Rome.

ROME (CNS) — The Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator called for greater accountability under church law of bishops who shield or fail to discipline pedophile priests.
Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made his remarks to reporters in Rome Feb. 8, after addressing an international symposium on clerical sex abuse.

CNS PHOTO
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Something old, something new, something borrowed and something red will be part of the mix Feb. 18 when Pope Benedict XVI creates new cardinals.
The general format of the consistory has been maintained, but the ceremony has been modified and will include the use of prayers borrowed from ancient Roman liturgies. Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan will even address the College of Cardinals on the subject of new evangelization.