The Latest Breaking News from Joseph Ratzinger

Police say a cross bequeathed by the late Pope Benedict XVI to a parish in his home German region of Bavaria has been stolen from the church where it was exhibited

Vatican City (AFP) - Just one week after the funeral of Benedict XVI, his closest aide released a much-trailed memoir Thursday, revealing details of tensions between the late pope emeritus and his more liberal successor Pope Francis.

Police estimated some 100,000 would be attending Thursday morning’s funeral service

More than 100,000 people are believed to be attending in the hope of taking part in a requiem mass to mark the occasion

Mourners poured into St. Peter’s Square early Thursday for the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, hoping to pay final respects to the German theologian who made history by retiring and participate in a rare requiem Mass for a dead pope presided over by a living one.

Mourners are streaming into St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Vatican City (AFP) - With the death of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis enters a new phase of his papacy free from the constraints of co-existing with a predecessor, but conservative criticism of his reforms may not end.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s longtime personal secretary has written a tell-all book that is coming out this month

Pope Benedict XVI leaves his homeland with a complicated legacy: pride in a German pontiff but a church deeply divided over the need for reforms in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal in which his own actions of decades ago were faulted