HAVANA, Cuba (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI wraps up his visit to Cuba on Wednesday with an open-air Mass in the shrine of the Cuban revolution, hoping to revive the Catholic faith in this communist-run country. His other appointment promises a far more tantalizing climax: a meeting with Fidel Castro. The former Cuban leader announced late Tuesday that he would happily meet with Benedict, saying he was asking for just a “few minutes of his very busy time” in Havana.... Read more

LAKESIDE, Calif. (AP) — The husband of an Iraqi-American woman who was found bludgeoned to death with a threatening note beside her made his first public remarks Tuesday and demanded to know what motivated her killer. Kassim Alhimidi addressing reporters at a mosque east of San Diego after a memorial service for 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi. “The main question we would like to ask is what are you getting out of this and why did you do it?” Alhimidi said in... Read more

HAVANA (AP) — During a sermon at the Cathedral in Havana Tuesday, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski urged a “soft landing” from Marxism. The Mass was part of a special service in honor of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the island. Wenski spoke to a packed audience of more than 300 mostly Cuban-American pilgrims who have come to Cuba, and they gave him a standing ovation. Many in the audience left Cuba as young children or are the sons and daughters... Read more

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors read dozens of confidential church documents aloud in court Tuesday to try to prove the Philadelphia archdiocese routinely buried complaints that priests were molesting children. Monsignor William Lynn is the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in parish work. The letters and memos read in court Tuesday centered on now-defrocked priest Edward Avery. Avery, known as the Smiling Padre, adopted six Hmong children and moonlighted as a... Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Jackson County judge says he will rule by the end of next week on a motion to dismiss a misdemeanor charge against a Kansas City Roman Catholic bishop accused of failing to report suspected child pornography on a priest’s computer. Circuit Judge John Torrence says he also will rule on a motion to sever the cases of Bishop Robert Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Both face the same charge, and... Read more

BEIRUT (AP) — The uprising in Syria is swiftly transforming into a civil war that could lay waste to the country, and the fallout from the year-old conflict already is bleeding outside the country’s borders. Diplomats such as Kofi Annan are working feverishly to end the bloodshed, not only because 9,000 people have been killed since the revolt began last March. The conflict could enflame already simmering regional tensions, give rise to extremists like al-Qaida and upend some of the... Read more

SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP) — Leading Cuban dissidents say they don’t know the man who shouted anti-government slogans before Pope Benedict XVI’s Mass in the eastern city of Santiago. Nor do they know his whereabouts a day after security agents removed him from the ceremony. But they say they are trying to find out, and worry he might face punishment. An independent Cuban group that monitors the detention of dissidents “has not been able to identify by name the young man... Read more

PARIS (AP) — School officials say a 12-year-old boy has been beaten by youths shouting anti-Semitic slogans outside the Jewish school he attends in Paris. The incident at the Ozar Hatorah school in the French capital came despite high security around Jewish schools and synagogues in France following a school shooting last week that left three children and a rabbi dead. That shooting took place at the Ozar Hatorah school in the southern city of Toulouse. Jean-Paul Amoyelle, president of... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says it has canceled a stem cell research conference because few had registered to attend. Church teaching opposes research involving human embryos. But some invited speakers reportedly are involved in research on embryonic stem cells. The Pontifical Academy for Life organized the “Responsible Stem Cells Research Congress” for April. But its website said that because of the “scarce” number of registrations, the event was canceled. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, quoted from... Read more

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors in Philadelphia are showing jurors memos to try to prove the Philadelphia archdiocese covered up complaints that priests were molesting children. Monsignor William Lynn is the first Roman Catholic church supervisor in the U.S. charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in ministry. Letters read in court Tuesday show Lynn telling a parish that accused pastor Edward Avery was on a “health leave” in 1993, when Avery was undergoing sex-therapy treatment at a Catholic hospital.... Read more