The Vatican has ordered two of its own tombs to be searched — the latest twist in the mysterious disappearance of a teenager, 36 years ago.
Emanuela Orlandi was 15 when she vanished without a trace in the summer of 1983. The daughter of a prominent employee of the Institute for the Works of Religion — better known as the Vatican Bank — Orlandi was last seen at a music lesson in the grounds of Sant’Apollinare basilica in Rome.
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On Tuesday, Gian Piero Milano, the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, authorized two exhumations in response to a petition launched by the teenager’s family, who believe that her body is buried at the Teutonic Cemetery in Vatican City.
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Demonstrators gather around Orlandi’s brother Pietro, center, during a event marking the 30th anniversary of her disappearance in St Peter’s Square in 2013.
Several dozen conservative Catholic scholars and clergy have charged Pope Francis with spreading heresy, a bold but perhaps futile salvo against Francis and his reform-minded papacy.
The widely publicized, theologically dense letter was delivered to the Pope with 40 signatures on August 11, according to its organizers. It has since gained 22 more signatures and was released to the public on Saturday. In a press release, the organizers say they speak for “a large number” of clergy and lay Catholics who “lack freedom of speech.”
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The letter does not accuse the Pope himself of being a heretic, but of supporting “heretical positions” on “marriage, the moral life and the Eucharist.”
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Francis has not responded to the letter publicly and the Vatican declined to comment.
The letter’s organizers call their challenge a “filial correction” of the Pope by his “spiritual sons and daughters.”
Pope Francis has said he is open to married men becoming priests to combat the Roman Catholic Church’s shortage of clergy.
In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, Pope Francis said the lack of Catholic priests was an “enormous problem” for the Church, and indicated he would be open to a change in the rules governing eligibility for the priesthood.
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“We need to consider if ‘viri probati’ could be a possibility,” he said. “If so, we would need to determine what duties they could undertake, for example, in remote communities.”
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Viri probati is the Latin term for “tested men” or married men of outstanding faith and virtue.
Rescuers were working to free eight survivors Friday who had endured an almost two-day ordeal buried under 16 feet of snow in the ruins of an avalanche-hit Italian hotel.
Earlier, a young boy and a woman were freed by emergency workers. In emotional scenes captured on video, crews were seen working around a deep hole with what appears to be a tiled floor beneath it.
The rescuers erupted into a chorus of cheers and cries of “Bravo!” when the child was brought to the surface after being trapped for more than 40 hours.
After the woman was pulled out, she spoke urgently to the workers, and appeared to point back down towards the rubble. Her speech was not picked up clearly by the cameras.
Both of the survivors shown being rescued were conscious and displayed no obvious sign of serious injuries.
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An Italian firefighter walks inside the Hotel Rigopiano on Thursday. Italian Firefighters / AP
As night fell in Italy’s Apennine Mountains on Thursday, prospects dimmed of finding survivors of an avalanche that had swept over a small resort hotel the previous night. At least 30 people were missing, according to the authorities.
The avalanche occurred after four earthquakes struck central Italy, which has been hit hard in recent months.
Giampiero Parete, a cook at the Rigopiano hotel and one of the two known survivors, had gone out to get something from his car when the avalanche struck. His wife and two young children remained inside and are among the missing.
Quintino Marcella, a restaurateur, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had received a frantic call for help from Mr. Parete on Wednesday night.
Mr. Parete told him that the hotel had been wiped out: “The hotel isn’t here anymore, it’s not here,” Mr. Marcella told the newspaper. He said that the guests had been waiting for a snow plow to clear the roads. “All the guests had their bags packed and were waiting to leave,” he said.
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As many as 30 people were reported missing at the hotel.
Alpine and Speleological Rescue Team, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy early Sunday, rattling Rome less than a week after temblors rattled a country still recovering from August’s quake that left almost 300 dead.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but residents rushed into piazzas and streets after being roused from bed at 7:40 a.m. local time (2:40 a.m. ET).
Nuns rushed out of their church in the central town of Norcia as the clock tower appeared about to crumble In Rieti, hospital patients fled into the street and and huddled outside under blankets.
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A collapsed building in Norcia pictured on Italian television channel Sky Tg24. HO / AFP – Getty Images
Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to helping India’s poor, will be made a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican said Friday.
She will likely be canonized in September to coincide with the 19th anniversary of her death and Pope Francis’ Holy Year of Mercy, according to an Italian Catholic newspaper report.
The pontiff marked his 79th birthday on Thursday by approving a decree that the nun had performed a second miracle 11 years after her death, the Vatican confirmed in a statement.
Before she fell on hard times and got into trouble with the law, Ashley Diamond had a wardrobe of wigs named after her favorite divas. “Darling, hand me Aretha” or Mariah or Madonna, she would say to her younger sister when they glammed up to go out on the town.
Ms. Diamond, 36, had lived openly and outspokenly as a transgender woman since adolescence, much of that time defying the norms in this conservative Southern city.
But on the day she arrived at a Georgia prison intake center in 2012, the deliberate defeminizing of Ms. Diamond began. Ordered to strip alongside male inmates, she froze but ultimately removed her long hair and the Hannah Montana pajamas in which she had been taken into custody, she said. She hugged her rounded breasts protectively.
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Before going to prison, Ashley Diamond lived as a woman.
Some 300 migrants who tried to cross the frigid Mediterranean in open, rubber boats, were reported missing Wednesday by survivors as the U.N. refugee agency and other aid groups sharply criticized the new EU rescue operation as insufficient and costing lives.
The suspected deaths add to the 29 reported earlier in the week by the Italian coast guard, which said those victims had died of hypothermia during the voyage that began over the weekend in Libya, where most smuggling operations originate.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said survivors had reported that four boats had left together, without food or water, and that the boats began taking on water almost immediately. Some 107 people had been rescued by the Italian coast guard and a merchant ship. The agency’s spokeswoman in Italy, Carlotta Sami, said the victims had been “swallowed up by the waves,” the youngest a child of 12.
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James' World 2 