In signed letter, future pope resisted pleas to defrock molester priest. April 9, 2010— -- A newly discovered letter provided to the Associated Press seems to prove that the future Pope Benedict ...

The odds-makers likely had an easier time 20 years ago, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long a loyal servant of Pope John Paul II and dean of the college of cardinals, stepped onto the balcony ...

Even before Pope John Paul II's death, few people in the Roman Catholic Church wielded as much power as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 77. His opponents regard him as a Vatican Rasputin, pulling strings, ...

Shortly before noon on the day that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI, I was standing in St. Peter's Square with a smart young Carmelite priest from Ireland. We were watching ...

First there was white smoke and the bells of St. Peter's. Then "Habemus papam," the announcement by Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez that the conclave of cardinals had named the 265th Pope. With ...

VATICAN CITY, April 20 -- Behind the sealed doors of the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church burst into applause Tuesday afternoon when, after four rounds of voting, Cardinal ...

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany addresses the faithful as the new pope in this frame from TV, at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 19 2005. Bells chimed at St. Peter's Basilica Tuesday evening, ...

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was such a close ally of Pope John Paul II that he could have easily chosen the name John Paul III. But those who expect the 78-year-old Pope Benedict XVI to ...