New US ambassador to Vatican arrives in Rome: agency

The new US ambassador to the Holy See, anti-abortion Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, arrived in Rome on Friday to take up her post, a mission spokeswoman said.

The United States and the Holy See have a "common vision rooted in respect for the dignity of each man, woman and child," Glendon said on her arrival, the mission's media advisor Amy Elizabeth Roth told AFP.

Pope Benedict Makes Appeal for Lebanon

Pope Benedict made an appeal for Lebanon, whose ongoing political crisis he says he has been following with concern.
For three months, the country has been without a President, as rival parties in parliament cannot agree on government.
The Holy Father pointed out that efforts to resolve the crisis and the support offered by many prominent representatives of the international community, even if they have not yet obtained a result, demonstrate the intention to identify a president who would be such for all Lebanese, and thus lay the foundation for overcoming existing divisions.

Vatican marks 150th anniversary of Lourdes girl's visions of Mary

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — A rib belonging to a 19th-century French shepherd girl was on Monday brought to the Vatican at the start of 150th anniversary celebrations of her visions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France.

The relic was conveyed in a solemn procession up the main thoroughfare between Rome's Tiber River and Saint Peter's Basilica, escorted by about 15 Italian police mounted on white horses.

According to Catholic tradition, Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, then 14, 18 times in 1858 in the southwestern French village of Lourdes on the slopes of the Pyrenees mountains.

The "little shepherd girl," who became a nun, died aged 35 in 1879. She was canonised in 1933.