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WASHINGTON – An excited mixture of clapping, cheering, screaming and singing only became louder as Pope Benedict XVI walked toward about 130 students who waited in front of the Vatican Embassy to wish the pope a happy 81st birthday April 16.

WASHINGTON – Here is the text of the remarks by Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to Pope Benedict XVI on behalf of the bishops at their meeting at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception April 16.

WASHINGTON – One of the “countersigns to the Gospel of life” in the United States is the sexual abuse of minors, a situation “that causes deep shame,” Pope Benedict XVI told about 300 U.S. bishops gathered April 16 in the crypt church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

WASHINGTON – Even some of the bishops were in the standing-room sections on the South Lawn of the White House waiting for Pope Benedict XVI to arrive.

Father William J. Watters, S.J., former pastor of St. Ignatius, Baltimore, was honored by the Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) April 10 at a Loyola Blakefield, Towson, reception. The priest received the first Madonna Della Strada Award, presented by the IVC national office and named after Sancta Maria Della Strada, the first church which St. Ignatius and early Jesuits obtained to serve the urban poor in the center of Rome centuries ago.

WASHINGTON – Thousands of Americans – not all of them Catholic – filled the South Lawn of the White House for the April 16 arrival ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

WASHINGTON – At 5:21 a.m., the disc jockey on a country music radio station in Fredericksburg, Va. – 50 miles south of Washington – invited listeners to join her in singing “Happy Birthday” to Pope Benedict XVI.

WASHINGTON – Here is the text of President George W. Bush’s remarks welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the South Lawn of the White House April 16.

WASHINGTON – In a meeting at the White House, Pope Benedict XVI and President George W. Bush discussed the problem of terrorism and how to confront it while respecting human rights.