MOSUL, Iraq, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Two Iraqi Catholic priests abducted more than a week ago in the northern city of Mosul were released alive and well on Sunday, church negotiators said.

Fathers Pius Affas and Mazen Ishoa, who were kidnapped last Saturday after being threatened by an unknown group, were now back at their church in Mosul, the negotiators told AFP on condition of anonymity.

'The two priests were left this morning by the kidnappers on a street in the middle of Mosul,' they said.

MOSUL, Iraq, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Two Iraqi Catholic priests abducted more than a week ago in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul were released alive and well on Sunday, church negotiators said.

Fathers Pius Affas and Mazen Ishoa, who were kidnapped last Saturday after receiving threats from an unknown group, were back at their church in Mosul, Christian leaders in the city involved in their release told AFP.

MOSUL, Iraq, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Kidnappers of two Iraqi Catholic priests abducted last weekend in the northern city of Mosul have demanded a ransom of one million dollars for their release, a bishop said on Saturday.

The unknown group issued a payment deadline of Saturday morning for the release of fathers Pius Affas and Mazen Ishoa, who are still believed to be alive, the bishop in Mosul told AFP on condition of anonymity.

ROME, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - The kidnappers of two Roman Catholic priests in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have extended to Saturday a deadline for paying a ransom for their release, a Catholic missionary agency in Rome said.

'The ultimatum was extended by 72 hours' or until Saturday 'for paying the ransom, but the kidnappers maintained their demands,' Monsignor Georges Casmousssa, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa in Mosul, was quoted as saying by the Misna news agency on Thursday.

NAIROBI, Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) - Kenyan Archbishop Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki, a relentless critic of rights abuses, retired Saturday from the helm of the Roman Catholic Church in Kenya which he served for nearly half a century.

Ordained as priest in 1961, the straight-talking Nzeki took over the leadership of the Kenyan church in 1997 upon appointment as the archbishop of Nairobi.

'I am happy I have done my work for 38 years as bishop,' the 75-year-old said.

PARIS, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy Wednesday hosted the spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexis II, who was invited to Paris by the French bishops' conference.

'This exceptional event is a major and palpable sign of the will of Europe's Christians to grow closer and unite around Europe's Christian roots,' Sarkozy's office said in a statement after their meeting.

LUSAKA, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Polish-born Roman Catholic Cardinal Adam Kozlowiecki, the first Archbishop of the Zambian capital Lusaka, has died in Zambia aged 96, the Church announced Sunday.

Kozlowiecki died of an old age-related illness in Lusaka on Friday, Church spokesman Father Paul Samasumo said in a statement.

'Always jovial and simple, the Cardinal will be greatly missed,' the statement said.

Kozlowiecki was ordained a priest in 1937 before being held by the Nazis at the Auschwitz and Dachau camps during World War II.

BERLIN, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - The German Catholic Bishops' Conference on Friday vowed to disclose sexual abuse by priests and not to allow those found guilty of paedophilia to work with children again.

Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the president of the conference, said it is 'determined to to everything to bring sexual abuse to light' and deeply regrets the suffering of victims of abuse and of their families.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - The Roman Catholic Church in San Diego will pay nearly 200 million dollars to 144 victims of sexual abuse by priests, the second biggest payout of its kind in US history, lawyers said Friday.

Lawyers for the dioceses of San Diego and San Bernardino and the victims thrashed out the 198.1-million-dollar settlement after protracted negotiations at the city's federal courthouse.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - The Roman Catholic Church in San Diego will pay nearly 200 million dollars in damages to more than 100 people who were sexually abused by members of the clergy, officials and lawyers said Friday.

Lawyers for dioceses of San Diego and San Bernardino and 144 victims of priest abuse thrashed out the 198.1-million-dollar settlement after protracted negotiations at the city's Federal Courthouse.

SANTIAGO, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - Chile charged a Catholic priest Friday in connection with human rights violations during the Augusto Pinochet era, judicial officials said, the first such charges against a cleric in the country.

Father Luis Jorquera, 70, was charged in the appeals court in Antofagasta in northern Chile with complicity in numerous rights cases arising from Pinochet's 1973-1990 military dictatorship, the court said.

NUREMBERG, Germany, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - A German priest with a previous conviction for paedophilia has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a choir boy, prosecutors in Nuremberg said on Friday.

The 39-year-old priest allegedly repeatedly abused the boy between 2003 and 2006, according to justice authorities in the southern city.

He had been found guilty of abusing two youths eight years ago, but was allowed to resume his duties as a priest by the diocese of Regensburg after he underwent therapy.

LONDON, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said Tuesday he will quit the human rights organisation Amnesty International in protest of its change of policy on abortion.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien said he was ending his membership due to Amnesty's new stance on abortion, backing the practice in certain circumstances.

He signalled his intention in a letter to John Watson, the director of Amnesty in Scotland.

The move follows a similar decision last week by a senior British Roman Catholic bishop.

ROME, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - The Italian Catholic Church will donate one million euros (1.35 million dollars) to relief efforts following last week's devastating earthquake in Peru, the bishops' conference said Tuesday.

'To address the emergency' that has claimed at least 540 lives since the measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale struck last Wednesday, the Italian Church leadership 'has made available one million euros,' it said in a communique.

LONDON, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - A senior British Roman Catholic bishop has resigned from Amnesty International because of the human rights group's new policy on abortion, his office confirmed Tuesday.

An aide to the Bishop of East Anglia in eastern England, the Right Reverend Michael Evans, said the cleric was ending his long-standing membership in protest at support for abortion facilities in developing countries.

LOURDES, France, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered at the Roman Catholic sanctuary of Lourdes in the French Pyrenees Wednesday for the Feast of the Assumption marking the Virgin Mary's ascension into heaven.

Under bright sunshine, some 35,000 people attended an open-air mass, the high point of the annual French pilgrimage to Lourdes, which is Christianity's most visited place of pilgrimage after Rome.

LONDON, Aug 12, 2007 (AFP) - The person who snatched young British girl Madeleine McCann from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal will have to answer to God, her father said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.

Asked whether he could forgive the person who took his four-year-old daughter, Gerry McCann told BBC television: 'We don't know what's happened to Madeleine, so it's very difficult to forgive in advance.

'Obviously, we've had incredible pain over the past three months and we pray that Madeleine hasn't. Ultimately, it will be God who judges.'

PARIS, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy led thousands of mourners on Friday at the funeral of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired archbishop of Paris, in Notre Dame Cathedral.

Sarkozy jetted home overnight from a US vacation to pay a final tribute to Lustiger, a pivotal figure in French religious life who served as archbishop for a quarter century until 2005, and died on Sunday aged 80.

PARIS, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of mourners, religious leaders and politicians gathered at Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral on Friday for the funeral of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired archbishop of Paris.

President Nicolas Sarkozy jetted home overnight from a US vacation to pay a final tribute to Lustiger, a pivotal figure in French religious life who served as archbishop for a quarter century until 2005, and died on Sunday aged 80.

PARIS, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will fly home from his US vacation to attend the funeral Friday of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired archbishop of Paris, in Notre Dame Cathedral, his office said.

Lustiger, a pivotal and highly respected figure in French religious life who served as Paris archbishop for 25 years until 2005, died on Sunday aged 80.

After the ceremony in Paris Sarkozy will head back to the United States where he is to meet Saturday with George W. Bush at the US president's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

PARIS, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will fly home from his US vacation to attend the funeral Friday of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired archbishop of Paris, in Notre Dame Cathedral, his office said.

Lustiger, a pivotal and highly respected figure in French religious life who served as Paris archbishop for 25 years until 2005, died on Sunday aged 80.

After the ceremony in Paris Sarkozy will head back to the United States where he is to meet Saturday with George W. Bush at the US president's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

MEXICO CITY, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - US lawyers questioned Mexico's senior Roman Catholic cleric over suspicions he helped protect a fellow priest accused of sexually abusing a child, a victims' lobbying group said Wednesday.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera was quizzed at the seat of the archdiocese in Mexico City by representatives from the Los Angeles high court, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests spokesman Erick Barragan told reporters.

PARIS, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - France's Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims united Monday in tribute to Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired archbishop of Paris who died Sunday night aged 80.

Lustiger was a pivotal and highly respected figure in French religious life. He was born a Jew but converted during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, and went on to become a gifted communicator for Catholicism.

Created a cardinal by late pope John Paul II, he served as Paris archbishop for a quarter of a century, from 1981 to 2005.

WARSAW, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - Some 90,000 people from across deeply Catholic Poland set off on foot Monday for an annual pilgrimage to a shrine which houses one of the country's most important religious symbols, organisers said.

The trek to the fortified monastery of Jasna Gora in the southern town of Czestochowa is held every year to mark the Feast of the Assumption on August 15.

The monastery houses an icon of the Virgin Mary known as Our Lady of Czestochowa or the Black Madonna, which is worshipped as a symbol of Poland's survival in the face of centuries of invasion.

PARIS, Aug 5, 2007 (AFP) - Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the retired Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris, died in the French capital Sunday, aged 80, the government said.

He passed away in a medical clinic where he was admitted in April.

Lustiger was a storied and respected figure in France, having been born a Jew but converting during the Nazi occupation of World War II, and going on to become a gifted communicator for Catholicism.

He was made a prelate by the late pope John Paul II, and served as Paris archbishop from 1981 to his resignation in February 2005.

DUBLIN, July 28, 2007 (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Roman Catholics on a gruelling 1,500-year-old traditional pilgrimage up Ireland's holiest mountain were urged Saturday to slow the pace of life in the hectic Celtic Tiger economy.

'The world in which we live has set an impossible pace,' Archbishop Michael Neary said in his homily at the beginning of the annual climb up Croagh Patrick mountain in County Mayo in the west of Ireland.