A message from Pope Benedict was read out at a Mass in Kolkata attended by a crowd of over 1,000 members of the Missionaries of Charity and slum-dwellers to mark the centenary of the birth of Mother Teresa.

Singer Susan Boyle has described the invitation to perform for the Pope during his visit to Scotland next month as her “greatest dream come true".

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has insisted that the Church was not involved in a cover-up over the Claudy bomb atrocity in July 1972 in which the IRA killed nine people and injured thirty.

A million copies of the handbook containing hymns, prayers and articles about the Pope's visit to Britain next month are being distributed to parishes across England, Scotland and Wales.

Sixteen men have begun studying for the diocesan priesthood in Ireland, a drop of more than fifty percent on last year’s intake.

The prayers sung in English at the papal Masses in Britain will use the translations from the new Order of the Mass approved by the Vatican in 2008.

The US has a duty to leave behind peace, not chaos, when its troops are finally withdrawn from Iraq according to Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad.

Christians and other minorities affected by severe flooding in Pakistan are being discriminated against in government-run rescue and aid programmes according to the director of pontifical missionary societies in Pakistan.

A Catholic adoption service which serves Middlesborough diocese is facing closure after it lost its latest battle with the Charity Commission for the right to exclude gay couples as potential adoptive parents.

Former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie will attend a speech by the Pope at the Houses of Parliament during his visit to Britain in September.