Catholic Church Italy

A senior Roman Catholic cardinal admitted Thursday that the Vatican bank had handled $62 million in bribes alleged to have been paid to Italian political parties by the Ferruzzi family industrial empire. Cardinal Rosario Castillo Lara, head of a Vatican commission that oversees the work of the bank, which is called the Institute for Religious Works, said in a newspaper interview that the bank had not known how the money would be used.

Ending a saga that had embarrassed the Vatican and captivated Italy, the wife of a Roman Catholic archbishop said Wednesday that she would accept his decision to leave her and return to the church. "For the great love for my husband, I'll respect his decision" to leave me, Maria Sung told reporters after meeting with Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo for the first time in three weeks. "But that doesn't change the feeling I have for him in my heart."

A parish priest in Sicily was in critical condition after sipping sacramental wine spiked with herbicide. His sacristan was under arrest. Police Maj. Giuseppe D'Agata said the Rev. Alfio Pappalardo, 66, collapsed at the altar after sipping the Eucharist wine during Mass on Thursday night at the Basilica of Pedara near the city of Catania. D'Agata said the sacristan, 53, was arrested after police found a bottle of herbicide at his home.

The government called a Vatican Radio offer to reduce transmissions "absolutely insufficient" and warned that it will pull the plug on broadcasts unless the Vatican complies with Italian laws governing electromagnetic emissions. It was the latest step in a struggle between Italy and the Vatican over the emissions, which people living near radio transmission towers outside Rome fear are a health hazard.

The government called a Vatican Radio offer to reduce transmissions "absolutely insufficient" and warned that it will pull the plug on broadcasts unless the Vatican complies with Italian laws governing electromagnetic emissions. It was the latest step in a struggle between Italy and the Vatican over the emissions, which people living near radio transmission towers outside Rome fear are a health hazard.

They stood against the same evil. "Lone Wolf" denounced the loan sharks from the microphone of his tiny radio station in southern Italy. The cardinal condemned them from his pulpit. Then, to the dismay of everyone who followed their crusade against the crooks known in Italy as "stranglers," their alliance ended.

Mafia members can marry in the church, but they must keep it quiet. A statement from the Conference of Italian Bishops on Saturday said the Roman Catholic Church cannot prohibit mobsters from taking wedding vows. But it urged them to limit the ceremony to family members and keep high-profile figures and celebrities off the guest list. "A useless waste of money offends the poor," the bishops wrote.

Jews will have the right not to work Saturdays and to deduct religious contributions from their taxes under an agreement worked out by the Italian government and the nation's Jewish community, a Jewish leader said Thursday. The new accord, which still must be approved by Parliament, will establish the rights of Italy's 35,000 to 40,000 Jews, 40% of whom live in Rome.

Venice tempted moviegoers Monday with French sexual tragedy, Stalinist political drama and off-screen imponderable legalism a la Italiana. The 45th Venice International Film Festival opened without a hitch but with a nagging question: Will Martin Scorsese's controversial "The Last Temptation of Christ" be shown? Answer: No one knows. Scheduled for festival presentation Sept.

Ending a saga that had embarrassed the Vatican and captivated Italy, the wife of a Roman Catholic archbishop said Wednesday that she would accept his decision to leave her and return to the church. "For the great love for my husband, I'll respect his decision" to leave me, Maria Sung told reporters after meeting with Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo for the first time in three weeks. "But that doesn't change the feeling I have for him in my heart."

Whenever Pope John Paul II lectures the faithful about respect for the environment, the right to life or anything else on his mind, a forest of transmitters on Rome's northern outskirts beams his words in 40 languages to Vatican Radio listeners around the world. Now it's the Vatican's turn to get lectured. Italian officials charge that those potent transmitters emit illegal levels of electromagnetic radiation, and neighborhood activists claim that they are killing children by causing leukemia.

The archbishop of Naples went on trial Saturday in a massive loan-sharking case, accused of appropriating a fortune in church funds. Cardinal Michele Giordano is the highest-ranking church official in Italy to stand criminal trial. At Saturday's hearing, charges against six of the 19 defendants were dismissed, including those against the cardinal's brother, Mario Lucio Giordano.

A parish priest in Sicily was in critical condition after sipping sacramental wine spiked with herbicide. His sacristan was under arrest. Police Maj. Giuseppe D'Agata said the Rev. Alfio Pappalardo, 66, collapsed at the altar after sipping the Eucharist wine during Mass on Thursday night at the Basilica of Pedara near the city of Catania. D'Agata said the sacristan, 53, was arrested after police found a bottle of herbicide at his home.

It's not easy to spot, squeezed between international check-in counters here at Rome's busy airport. But for Roman Catholic sinners in transit, the tiny chapel near the VIP lounge offers quick-stop salvation. Catholic authorities have put the airport chapel on a temporary par with Rome's four great basilicas: St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Paul's Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major.

They stood against the same evil. "Lone Wolf" denounced the loan sharks from the microphone of his tiny radio station in southern Italy. The cardinal condemned them from his pulpit. Then, to the dismay of everyone who followed their crusade against the crooks known in Italy as "stranglers," their alliance ended.

A senior Roman Catholic cardinal admitted Thursday that the Vatican bank had handled $62 million in bribes alleged to have been paid to Italian political parties by the Ferruzzi family industrial empire. Cardinal Rosario Castillo Lara, head of a Vatican commission that oversees the work of the bank, which is called the Institute for Religious Works, said in a newspaper interview that the bank had not known how the money would be used.

After four decades abroad, Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus, the best known--and most controversial--American prelate at the Vatican, has retired from papal service to return to his native Chicago as a parish priest. Built like a linebacker, his street Chicago accent and idiom unblunted by 40 years of Vatican propriety, Marcinkus first drew international attention as the Pope's chief bodyguard and later as the hapless president of a Vatican bank rocked by monumental financial scandal.

In the name of God, American missionary priests and reclusive Italian nuns have fought one another for six years to win control of one of Rome's oldest churches. Anonymous phone calls and baroque bureaucratic manipulation became the battleground of a war that escalated at its most fevered into an ecclesiastical street brawl. Now, the bitter and embarrassing struggle between religious orders seems almost over. The Americans think they have won.

Mafia members can marry in the church, but they must keep it quiet. A statement from the Conference of Italian Bishops on Saturday said the Roman Catholic Church cannot prohibit mobsters from taking wedding vows. But it urged them to limit the ceremony to family members and keep high-profile figures and celebrities off the guest list. "A useless waste of money offends the poor," the bishops wrote.

In the name of God, American missionary priests and reclusive Italian nuns have fought one another for six years to win control of one of Rome's oldest churches. Anonymous phone calls and baroque bureaucratic manipulation became the battleground of a war that escalated at its most fevered into an ecclesiastical street brawl. Now, the bitter and embarrassing struggle between religious orders seems almost over. The Americans think they have won.