The rosary, a cycle of prayers said while worshippers finger a string of beads, is not gender-specific. Yet many men say they have always associated the rosary with women, especially older females.

Now David Calvillo, 49, is now on a crusade to convince Catholics that “real men pray the rosary,” the name he gave a nonprofit he founded last year.

There’s no way to know whether the number of men praying the rosary is increasing, but nearly 9,000 people have indicated they like “Real Men Pray the Rosary” on the group’s Facebook page.

Father Antoine Videau, a Catholic priest who drove a Ferrari, kept a mistress and stole £2million from the Church and his flock has been jailed.

Police raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church on Thursday following fresh accusations of child sex abuse involving priests.

The latest blow to the scandal-hit Roman Catholic Church came as a meeting of bishops took place in the presence of the Vatican’s ambassador to Belgium, in Mechelen, just north of Brussels.

Long a thorn in the Vatican’s side, Austrian Catholics have ramped up their quest for a more liberal church in the wake of the global clerical sex abuse scandal.

What is particularly troubling for Rome is that Austria – historically a major symbol of Catholicism in Europe and a bulwark against the Protestant Reformation – is losing worshippers in record numbers as calls for reform grow stronger.

One of Italy's most prominent Catholic cardinals and a former minister have been put under investigation as a corruption scandal that has tainted the government spread to touch the Vatican.

Churchgoers in almost 300 parishes that disapprove of women priests may take advantage of Pope Benedict XVI’s offer to change denomination if their “flying bishops” lead the way.

“Flying bishops”, who provide “episcopal oversight” to parishes that cannot accept women priests.

He added that the assault on Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas Eve by a mentally unstable woman and the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the Anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See.

Charging that the Catholic Church should lose its tax-exempt status, a consortium of atheists and Catholic activists filed two lawsuits against Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Assemblymember Vito Lopez (D-Williamsburg) and the Catholic Diocese over their role in producing a recorded message sent to Williamsburg’s registered voters less than a week before they went to the polls.

The Vatican announced Thursday the dismissal from the clerical state of rebel priest Emmanuel Milingo who in 2001 broke his celibacy vow by marrying a Korean woman — via the Moonies cult — and who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 2006 when he ordained bishops without papal consent.

The participation of the faithful ‘in any future celebrations organized by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo is to be considered unlawful,’ the Vatican added.

Lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church urged a court Monday to let Christians use “Allah” as a translation for God and overturn a government ban that has become a symbol of religious grievances in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

In 2008 The Herald, a weekly magazine circulated among the country’s 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence for using the disputed word.

An enterprising Italian inventor has patented an automatic holy water dispenser for use in Catholic churches. Some parishes in northen Italy have already installed the fonts and many more all over the country are expected to follow suit. [video]

A rare look at how the Roman Catholic Church goes to great lengths to keep clergy members’ clandestine relationships hidden and the priests in active ministry.

Clergy members of many faiths have crossed the line with women and had children out of wedlock. But the problem is particularly fraught for the Catholic Church, as Catholics in many countries are increasingly questioning the celibacy requirement for priests.

A pharmacist in western NSW, Australia has banned the sale of condoms, the contraceptive and morning-after pill because it is against his beliefs as a Catholic.

In a move that has angered health experts, Griffith pharmacist Trevor Dal Broi has refused to sell the oral contraceptive pill, the morning-after pill and condoms, referring customers to other chemists in the area.

“As a practising Catholic, it is my obligation to accept the official teaching of the Catholic Church against the use of artificial contraception,” he said.

BBC Northern Ireland presenter William Crawley has a blog post about “Hardcore Profits, a BBC documentary about the pornography industry, has been looking into those organisations who have investments, directly or indirectly, with in the adult entertainment business.”

Crawley says following a change in ethical policy guidelines the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops in 2003, Christian Brothers Investment Services now have investments of tens of millions of dollars in companies that make sizeable profits from commercial pornography. The Bishops’ guidelines permit these investments because the new rules allow the church to do business with a company as long as income from pornography does not represent “a significant portion of its revenues”.

British film-maker Roland Joffe is to recreate the life and miracles of Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish priest who founded Opus Dei, one of the most influential and secretive organisations within the Catholic Church.

The film seems set to stir up more controversy, following in the wake of several screen hits tapping into public fascination with tales of Opus-inspired crimes and conspiracies, which have set Vatican chasubles aflap.

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