The Pope has reportedly been warned he is at risk of an assassination attempt by Islamic State extremists.

Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio was tonight elected pope – the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

An Italian man has eluded Vatican security and scaled the 427ft high dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to protest over Italian government and European Union policies.

The Vatican insisted today it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee's teenage daughter and has no objections to allowing inspection of the basilica tomb of a reputed mobster from a gang purportedly linked to her presumed kidnapping.

An 800-strong group of Irish priests has said it is disturbed over the Vatican's silencing of one of its members for his liberal views.

Pope Benedict XVI is bringing 22 new Catholic churchmen into the elite club of cardinals who will elect his successor.

The late Pope John Paul II will be beatified at the Vatican this weekend.

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of his regret that Christians have largely become a population of non-believers.

Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher has likened accusations against the Pope and the Catholic church in the sex abuse scandal to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.

Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the legacy of his predecessor John Paul II, five years after his death, amid questions over the late pontiff's record in combating paedophile priests and whether a miracle needed for his sainthood really happened.

One of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers has become implicated in a gay prostitution ring.

A woman accused of assaulting the Pope won't go to court for a few weeks.

The Vatican will review its security procedures after a woman jumped a barrier and rushed at Pope Benedict XVI for the second time in two years.

The Pope is to make his first papal visit to Africa next year.

Pope Benedict XVI ushered in Christmas today by celebrating midnight Mass in St Peter's Basilica, where he urged people to set aside time in their lives for God and the needy.

Pope Benedict XVI made a New Year's Day wish today that people would work courageously for world peace, and especially for a lasting end to the Holy Land's conflict, which he said has dragged on for too long.

Pope Benedict XVI today dedicated one of his last public messages in 2006 to families, who he said were assailed by cultural pressures threatening to destroy the family as a social institution.

YOUR editorial (Irish Examiner, April 20) refers to “the controversy raging following the concelebration of Easter Mass by Catholic priests and a Church of Ireland clergyman in Drogheda”.

POPE Benedict installed his first group of new cardinals on Friday, elevating 15 men from Hong Kong to Boston to join the exclusive Catholic group that advises him and will one day elect his successor.

Pope Benedict XVI presided over his first saint-making ceremony today, canonising five people in a Mass in St Peter's Square that also closed a meeting of the world's bishops.

Pat Brosnan

Harry McGee, Political Editor, Rome

BLACK smoke wafted from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney in Vatican City yesterday evening, signalling that the cardinals holding the first papal conclave of the new millennium had held their first vote — but failed to elect a new leader for the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

CARDINALS meeting in Rome to discuss the issues facing the Catholic church ahead of next week's conclave to elect a Pope have signed a petition to accelerate the beatification of John Paul II, a report said yesterday.

CARDINAL Bernard Law celebrated Mass for Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Basilica yesterday, ignoring protests that his handling of the sex abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church should disqualify him from the honour.

CARDINALS yesterday began "an intense period of silence and prayer" before their conclave to choose the next Pope, saying they will stop speaking publicly to protect the secrecy surrounding the centuries-old tradition.

PEACE and a whiff of controversy broke out yesterday as a remarkable collection of world leaders and royalty rubbed shoulders at John Paul’s funeral, with only an alphabetical seating plan to divide heads of state whose relations could be frosty or even non-existent.

CATHOLICISM never looked as universal, the original meaning of ‘catholic’, as it did when it paid final homage yesterday to Pope John Paul, one of the giants of the Church’s 2,000-year history.

THE souvenir sellers were busy enough as the cameras snapped the famous sights in Rome and the normal number of tourists for this time of year wandered around.

PRESIDENTS, prime ministers and kings joined pilgrims and prelates in St Peter’s Square yesterday to bid an emotional farewell to Pope John Paul II at a funeral service that drew millions to Rome for the largest gathering of the powerful and the humble in modern times.

THE Pope was looking after us. That was the unanimous chorus of delight and surprise from privileged Irish pilgrims who found themselves witnessing history close up in St Peter’s Square yesterday.

Up to five million people, including scores of world leaders, have gathered in Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

POPE John Paul's body was displayed to the world yesterday and his words echoed across St Peter's Square as the faithful mourned the Pole who helped topple communism in Europe but left a divided Church.

ROMAN Catholic faithful prayed for Pope John Paul's recovery yesterday as he missed out on Ash Wednesday prayers that ushered in the solemn and sacred Lenten season for the first time in his 26-year papacy.

POPE John Paul rang in the New Year yesterday with a renewed call for peace in the Middle East and Africa and the creation of a new world order based on respect for the dignity of man and equality among nations.

A FRAIL Pope John Paul II yesterday added 30 names to the list of his possible successors, installing a diverse collection of cardinals in a consistory some say may be his last.

MOTHER TERESA of Calcutta, the humble nun known as the “saint of the gutters”, was beatified by Pope John Paul II before 300,000 pilgrims massed yesterday in St Peter’s Square.

POPE John Paul is "in a bad way," one of his closest advisers was quoted as saying in an interview yesterday that was a rare break with Vatican ranks.

A MASSIVE blackout in Italy, which left millions of people without power, stranding planes and trains, and leading to traffic accidents was last night blamed on a tree.

By TP O’Mahony WHEN the cardinals of the Catholic Church gather in conclave to elect the next Pope, what will they use as their papal template?

POPE John Paul II opened the new year yesterday

The Pope may not be able to celebrate the Stations of the Cross ceremony in Rome today, because of health worries.

Pope John Paul II has prayed for the strength to continue in his papacy after health problems.

New York City firefighters have met the Pope in the Vatican.