Rome Basilica

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  Pope Francis To Launch Jubilee 2025, A Year Of Catholic Celebrations

  Pope Francis will open the "Holy Door" of St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, in front of 30,000 people and a live TV audience around the world.

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  Slovakia's Ice Church In Tatra Mountains Draws Visitors Closer To Heaven

  At 1,285 metres above sea level, the ice replica of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome is higher than any of Slovakia's 4,158 churches, more than half of them Roman Catholic.

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  Priyanka Chopra, A Tourist In Rome

  Priyanka Chopra has ticked-off St Peter's Basilica and the Colosseum from her Rome travel itinerary

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  Pope Francis Likens Refugee Holding Centres To 'Concentration Camps'

  Pope Francis urged governments on Saturday to get migrants and refugees out of holding centres, saying many had become 'concentration camps'.

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  McDonald's Heads To The Vatican

  McDonald's on Friday opened a restaurant around the corner from St. Peter's Square, on the ground floor of a Vatican-owned building. According to McDonald's Italy website, the new location offers WiFi, accommodates birthday parties and serves the "Sweety," a burger bun filled with Nutella.

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  McDonald's Opens Near Vatican, Upsetting Some Purists

  McDonald's has opened a franchise just steps away from the gleaming white marble dome of St. Peter's Basilica, giving indigestion to some cardinals and local business owners.

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  Italy Earthquake Triple Punch Leaves Thousands Homeless

  Italian authorities said on Monday they were taking care of more than 15,000 people left homeless by the country's most powerful earthquake in nearly 40 years.

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  Don't Let Sadness Win In These Fearful Times: Pope

  Pope Francis called on humanity today not to let sadness prevail because of the many forms of violence afflicting the world.

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  Machine Guns, No-Fly Zone Surround Pope's Opening Of Holy Year

  Tens of thousands of faithful backed up for blocks at the Vatican today, undergoing the strictest security checks in living memory as Pope Francis began Holy Year with a call to set aside "fear and dread".

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  Pope Francis Opens St Peter's Holy Door To Launch Catholic Jubilee

  Pope Francis today launched an extraordinary Catholic Jubilee year by opening a "Holy Door" in the walls of St Peter's, embracing a 700-year-old tradition while urging the Church to reach out and embrace the modern world with mercy.

• Former Pope Benedict returns to Vatican to live out retirement

  Benedict XVI moved back to the Vatican on Thursday, opening an uncertain era in Catholic Church history where an "emeritus pope" and a ruling pontiff will live as neighbours for the first time.

• Pope completes installation with emotional Rome mass

  Pope Francis on Sunday completed his installation as pontiff at an emotional ceremony in which he formally took possession of Rome's St John Lateran basilica -- the official seat of the city's bishop.

• Pope presides over first Good Friday observances

  Pope Francis presided over his first Good Friday which will culminate in a torch-lit procession at Rome's Colosseum and prayers for peace in a Middle East "torn apart by injustice and conflicts".

• Pope Francis feted in Italian ancestral village

  Jorge Mario Bergoglio has made history as the first pontiff from Latin America, but his distant cousins in a hilltop hamlet in northern Italy claim Argentina's Pope Francis as one of their own.

• New pope slips out of Vatican for morning prayer visit

  Pope Francis, barely 12 hours after his election, quietly left the Vatican early on Thursday to pray for guidance at a Rome basilica as he looks to usher a Catholic Church mired in intrigue and scandal into a new age of simplicity and humility.