In New York at 9.30 am local time on Sunday 20 April 2008, the Pope visited Ground Zero, the name now used to refer to the site once occupied by the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. He prayed for peace and an end to hatred.

In advance of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the US, three prominent gay Catholics have urged the pontiff to enter into a dialogue with lesbian and gay Catholics. They addressed the pontiff through open statements about their lives, loves, and hopes for the church at a press conference at the end of last week.

President George Bush and his wife Laura Bush will greet Pope Benedict XVI, April 15, when he arrives at Andrews Air Force Base for a six-day visit to the United States that will take him to Washington and New York City.

The newspaper L'Osservatore Romano claims that the students and scientists who protested about the Pope giving a speech at their university last month had misunderstood his views on Galileo because of a mistake involving Wikipedia.

Pope Benedict XVI has made an appeal for an end to the current violence in the African nation of Chad, as apart of a series of conversations to promote reconciliation with justice in a number of war-torn countries and regions.

Pope Benedict XVI and the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) have announced they will meet in Rome on Friday 25 January 2008, at the centennial of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, has said that Christians should give priority to unity in the global Week of Prayer that runs from 18-25 January. He also commended a peace message from St Augustine.

Pope Benedict has cancelled a visit to the prestigious La Sapienza University in Rome after protests about his past remarks about Galileo. But a professor there says attempts to stop him speaking violate intellectual freedom.

Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, has made another appeal for peace and dialogue in Kenya following recent violence and disturbances in the wake of the country's presidential elections.

Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, says that in troubled times all people are "called to build relationships of solidarity and cooperation among themselves, as befits members of the one human family."