Vatican City

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II's successor won't just face dwindling church attendance and an elderly priesthood: He also has to find new revenue to balance the Vatican's budget. After making a gain for eight years, the Holy See, the central administration for the church, ran deficits in the three years through 2003, the Vatican's financial statements show. The separately run budget for Vatican City, the independent papal state in Rome, was also in the red in 2003, the latest year for which figures are available.

Growing up in Rome, not far from Saint Peter's Basilica (whose dome I could see from my parents' bedroom) I did not think much of my circumstance. I thought it was just normal to drive my scooter by the Vatican walls and to see the Swiss guards seriously guarding the entrance to Vatican City. I also thought it normal to be able to go into Vatican City (as my father was a Vatican employee) to buy cheaper gas and imported goods free of the high Italian taxes. It is only after moving to America that I realized the exceptional luck of my youth.

VATICAN CITY -- With his doctors' blessing, Pope John Paul II is launching another rigorous year of foreign travel, returning to troubled Africa on the first of five foreign trips scheduled for 1993.The 8-day swing, starting today, will take the 72-year-old pontiff to Benin, Uganda and war-torn Sudan. It will be his 10th visit to Africa and the 57th foreign journey of a 14-year reign that has made him history's most traveled world leader.Six months after major surgery to remove a tumor from his intestine, John Paul travels with a clean bill of health following a checkup at the Vatican Jan. 18, aides say.Frail and almost skeletal when he left the hospital last summer, John Paul has recovered strength, weight and color in recent months.

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II will take a secret to the grave when he is buried tomorrow: the identity of the last cardinal he named. The mystery stems from the rare papal practice of naming cardinals in pectore, or "close to the heart." Popes have usually done this to honor a prelate's service in a country where the Roman Catholic Church is persecuted without further straining the Holy See's relations with that nation or exposing the prelate to harassment. Sometimes even the cardinal in question is unaware of his honor.

VATICAN CITY -- Summoned to Rome by Pope John Paul II for a special congress, Roman Catholic bishops from Africa are seeking to match the demands of their faith with the social, political and economic needs of a hungry and often violent continent.For some 300 bishops from the 53 nations of Africa attending a month-long synod here, "inculturation" -- the melding of Roman Catholicism with African traditions -- emerged as an overriding concern. "It is the marriage of faith and life," said the group's interim document.

VATICAN CITY -- The Roman Catholic Church officially closed out Pope John Paul II's reign yesterday and unveiled a false floor in the Sistine Chapel to hide anti-eavesdropping equipment. The Vatican said Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the papal chamberlain, destroyed Pope John Paul's Fisherman's Ring and lead seal, officially ending his pontificate, during a meeting of cardinals to discuss problems facing the church. Then, the cardinals in Rome under the age of 80 were told to begin moving this afternoon into the Domus Sanctae Marthae, or St. Martha's House, behind St. Peter's Basilica, for the conclave, which begins tomorrow.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI made his most important change yet in the Vatican hierarchy yesterday, placing in the church's No. 2 position a conservative cardinal who once tried to lead a boycott of the novel The Da Vinci Code. The Vatican announced the appointment of Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa as secretary of state, a position similar to that of prime minister. He will succeed Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 78, who held the post for 15 years and became especially powerful as the health of Pope John Paul II deteriorated.

VATICAN CITY - After a papal funeral that spread images of Catholicism throughout the world, Vatican officials imposed an information blackout yesterday to allow the cardinals who will choose a new pope to enter "an intense period of silence and prayer." A Vatican statement said a withdrawal from the spotlight will let the cardinals concentrate and reflect on the conclave, to begin April 18, in which they are to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II. But the blackout will also help squelch speculation about the cardinals' preferences for the next pontiff.

VATICAN CITY - With tens of thousands of people praying and singing hymns in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II neared death this morning, his kidneys failing, his breathing shallow and Roman Catholic leaders taking steps to prepare the pontiff's followers for the reality that his fading life would soon be over. "This evening or this night, Christ throws open the doors to John Paul II," Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City told about 30,000 people gathered last night in the chill of the square, many gazing above to the lit room of the pope's Vatican apartment.

TERRORISTS have won. They captured our attention and will not let go.Does a tree falling in a forest that no one hears make a sound? A bomb exploding that no one knows about creates no terror.An act of terror is a public relations stunt, resorted to by the side that could not win a fight, debate or election. Occasionally, it provokes events that overturn an outcome. Usually, it fails.U.S. authorities have steered a center course on the evidence of plots to commit carnage where people will congregate in front of cameras at the turn of the millennium.