Vatican City

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican is preparing to release a document, years in the making, that will bolster the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine against admitting gay men into the priesthood. Despite an acute shortage of Catholic priests in many parts of the world, church leaders under Pope Benedict XVI are advocating a more careful screening of aspiring clerics to keep out homosexuals. However, rather than the absolute ban feared in some circles, the pope is expected to adopt a somewhat more nuanced approach in the final document.

Catholic bishops reaffirm stance on celibacy of priests VATICAN CITY -- The first Synod of Bishops under Pope Benedict XVI ended yesterday with an embrace of tradition, acknowledging the severity of the shortage of priests in the Roman Catholic Church but rejecting solutions such as allowing married priests. "There has been a massive restatement of the importance of the tradition in the Latin Church of mandatory celibacy," Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, Australia, told a news conference.

Let it be ... in Louisville As many as 20,000 Beatles fans are expected in Louisville, Ky., over Memorial Day weekend for America's largest Beatles festival, which is making this city its new home. "Abbey Road on the River" has been held the past three years in Cleveland but will move to Kentucky for this year's event, which runs Friday through Sunday. Tourism spending from the festival is expected to pump about $3 million into the local economy, according to Mayor Jerry Abramson. The weekend will include a Beatles film festival, lectures on the rock group and the sale of memorabilia, including paintings by well-known artists.

VATICAN CITY -- The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church return to the sequestered secrecy of the Sistine Chapel this morning, resuming the deliberations to elect a new pope that ended yesterday with plumes of black smoke rising from the chapel's stovepipe -- a sign that their first vote did not produce a two-thirds majority. Thousands in St. Peter's Square briefly saw the first wisps of smoke as white, building hopes that the 115 cardinals had chosen a successor to Pope John Paul II on their first ballot.

VATICAN CITY -- History towers over the 115 Roman Catholic cardinals who will gather today to begin selecting a new pope, but some of the church's ancient traditions are shifting beneath their feet. The cardinals' isolation from the outside world, first codified in 1274, will be bolstered this year by jamming devices reportedly hidden under a false floor in the Sistine Chapel, there to defeat any sophisticated microphones or eavesdropping satellites. The cardinals will be confined beginning this afternoon, as those in such conclaves have been off and on for more than 1,000 years, but this time with comforts previously unimagined, including private bathrooms and a chance to stroll in the Vatican gardens.

VATICAN CITY - Tomorrow, 115 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will sequester themselves in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel for the beginning of the faith's most private and perhaps most important ritual, the election of a new pope. They will dress in their traditional scarlet cassocks and hats, and, after a Mass and lunch, will file one by one into the 15th-century sanctuary, chanting an ancient ode to God. They will have surrendered cell phones, radios and any other links to the outside, and they will swear on the Gospels never to speak of the proceedings about to transpire.

VATICAN CITY - Tomorrow, 115 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will sequester themselves in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel for the beginning of the faith's most private and perhaps most important ritual, the election of a new pope. They will dress in their traditional scarlet cassocks and hats, and, after a Mass and lunch, will file one by one into the 15th-century sanctuary, chanting an ancient ode to God. They will have surrendered cell phones, radios and any other links to the outside, and they will swear on the Gospels never to speak of the proceedings about to transpire.

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 - The man from Minnesota stood off to the side of St. Peter's Square and scrolled through the pictures on his digital camera with pride. He'd captured the dome of the basilica, the papal apartments, maybe the chimney of the Sistine Chapel - all the gems that a Vatican-watching tourist requires. Then he arrived at a true prize. "Here's the swarm," he said, swinging the camera around to reveal an image that seemed to show three dozen journalists all but stabbing a red-haired woman with cameras and microphones.

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.