Pope Benedict XVI has proclaimed seven new saints for the Catholic church, including two from North America - Hawaii's Mother Marianne Cope and and 17th-century Native American Kateri Tekakwitha.

The decrees were signed on Tuesday by Pope Benedict. This is the final step before the saints' official canonizations.

Mother Marianne took care of leprosy patients on the island of Molokai during the late 1880's after the death of Father Damien, who was himself canonized in 2009. Marianne ministered to the leprosy patients at Kalaupapa, Molokai, for more than thirty years, and her compassionate care earned her the title of "beloved mother of outcasts."

Mother Marianne entered religious life in 1862 in Syracuse, New York, where she ministered as a teacher and principal in several state schools.

Harold Camping, the preacher who gained international attention for repeatedly falsely predicting the end of the world, says he finds the whole thing quite "embarrassing." In an audio file posted on his Family Radio website on Monday, Camping admitted he was wrong, saying:

"We're living in a day when one problem follows another, and when it comes trying to recognize the truth of prophecy we're finding it very, very difficult."

Camping, 89, has made several predictions about the end of the world over the past few decades. His first prediction was for 1994, then May 2011, and then October 2011.

In his recording, Camping said:

"Why didn't Christ return on Oct. 21? It seems embarrassing for Family Radio, but God is in charge of everything."

He noted that no matter what people believe is in the Bible, God ultimately has the final say and isn't obligated to reveal his plans:

"There's one thing that we must remember. God is in charge of this whole business, and we are not. What God wants to tell us is his business, when he wants to tell us is his business."

Decades after they were found in desert caves, and two thousand years after they were written, the Dead Sea Scrolls will now be able to be seen by anyone with internet access. Israel's national museum and Google teamed up to put the scrolls online. On Monday, five of the scrolls, including the biblical Book of Isaiah, were put online.

Using Google's technology, visitors to the website can search the scrolls for specific passages and even translate them into English.

The five scrolls made available online were originally found by Bedouin shepherds in the Judean Desert, and were purchased by Israeli researchers between 1947 and 1967. They are held by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Google and Israel are also collaborating to make the first comprehensive and searchable database of the broader collection of scrolls.

On Thursday, the French government announced that it was banning praying outside, and officials pledged to enforce the ban beginning on Friday. On Friday, hundreds of Muslims defied the ban, praying on the streets in the neighborhood of La Goutte d'Or, reported Le Parisien newspaper.

French interior minister Claude Gueant insisted that he had nothing against Islam, but wanted it out of the public eye as France was a secular state. Gueant added:

"Street prayers must stop because they hurt the feelings of many of our compatriots who are shocked by the occupation of the public space for a religious practice."

Gueant warned that while officials would try to persuade people to pray in mosques, Muslims that continued to pray in the street would be arrested. French Muslim leaders were angered by the ban, who said that Muslims only prayed outside because of a lack of space in mosques in France.

In April, France enacted laws prohibiting students from wearing headscarves in schools and banning women from wearing the full Muslim veil known as the niqab in public.

According to a report release by Andalu Agency on Wednesday, the tomb of one of the disciples of Jesus Christ was recently discovered in Turkey. Archaeologists claim that the tomb of St. Philip the Apostle, one of the twelve original disciples of Christ, was found in the southwestern Turkish province of Denizli.

Archaeologists have searched for years for St. Philip, and now claim to have finally found his burial chamber. Francesco D'Andria, an Italian professor and archaeologist, led the excavation team that discovered the tomb.

They stumbled on the monument while working on excavating a newly discovered church in the ancient city of Hierapolis (present day Pamukkale). Hierapolis, or “sacred city”, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its spas and hot springs since the second century.

Philip was said to have been martyred at the location after returning from preaching throughout Asia Minor. Philip preached in Greece, Syria and Phrygia before he died around 80 A.D. He was believed to have been been beheaded and crucified upside-down. An octogon shaped tomb was built for him and named "The Martryium".

D'Andria said:

"We have been looking for Saint Philip's tomb for years. We finally found it in the ruins of a church which we excavated a month ago."

Dozens of Cleveland Roman Catholics went to the headquarters of the Cleveland Diocese to protest Bishop Richard Lennon's closing of more than fifty area churches during his embattled tenure. The display of solidarity comes as Bishop John Smith from New Jersey was brought to Cleveland this week to look closer at the parishes closed by Lennon.

Joseph Feckanin, of Seven Hills, held a sign that read "Lennon Resign Now". He says that many of the churches he closed were not in a money crunch and their goal is to make more people aware of that fact.

Stan Zadnik, of Cleveland, says that Bishop Lennon is doing a poor job. He says that the closings were not done for gospel reasons. Zadnik added that Saint Lawrence, which he attended before closure, was left with a $500,000 surplass after shuttering its doors despite members of the congregation knowing that the church was slated for closure for an entire year.

Bishop Smith, who has met with some leaders of local churches, will be in town until Friday and report his findings to Rome in the coming weeks.

Rabbi Zalman Kazen, patriarch of a well known Chabad family, passed away Sunday, in Brooklyn, NY, at the age of 92. Rabbi Kazen, a Chabad disciple of the sixth Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Joseph I. Schneerson, and later of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, served as rabbi of the Tzemach Tzedek shul in Cleveland, Ohio for over 50 years.

He was a survivor of communist persecution in early Soviet Russia, and is survived by several generations of descendants who serve today as Chabad representatives around the world.

He has over 300 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
In 2005, Baila Olidort interviewed Rabbi Kazen to get his testimony for the Helsinki Commission hearings on the matter of the return of the Chabad library from Moscow’s State Library, to Lubavitch Headquarters in New York.

The interview was conducted in Yiddish. Linked below is an excerpt of her interview, part of which was submitted as testimony to the Helsinki Commission. Rabbi Kazen spoke about his mother, the legendary Mumme Sara, who whisked numerous Jews out of Russia with forged passports that she provided, at risk to her own life.

After announcing that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan this weekend, the United States said that his body was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition. Muslim clerics said on Monday, however, that Bin Laden's sea burial was a violation of Islamic tradition, and may provoke militant calls for revenge attacks on American targets.

Sea burials are permitted, but only in certain circumstances. The death would have needed to have occurred aboard a ship in order for a burial at sea to be approved. Ideally, a body should be buried before sunset.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon, said:

"The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration."

"Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances," he added. "This is not one of them."

Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, added:

"They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam. If the family does not want him, it's really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that's it."

Pope Benedict XVI has fired an outspoken Australian bishop that called on the Church to ordain women and married men. In a statement issued on Monday, the Vatican said that the pope had "removed from pastoral care" Bishop William Morris of the Toowoomba diocese, west of Brisbane.

It's a stronger move than typical of the Vatican, which general asks church leaders to resign, and then later announces that the pope has accepted their resignations.

According to Australian media, Morris recently published an open letter in which he said he was being removed for a 2006 message to the faithful in which he argued that a shortage of priests should force the church to consider ordaining both married men and women. He said that the letter prompted some complaints to Rome, which then led to a Vatican investigation. The Australian newspaper says that Morris indicated that he had never written a letter of resignation.

Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, has vehemently upheld the Catholic teaching that only celibate men can be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. However, married men in the Latin rite church who are loyal to the church can become priests. The Vatican has also welcomed married Anglican priests in recent years who have converted Roman Catholicism.

Do you like beer almost as much as self-righteous AA Bible-thumpers? Does the thought of 800 beers from 200 breweries make you weaker in the knees than a West 6th bartender? Is your name something other than "Chuck Galeti"? Then look no further than your back yard, fellow Clevelander. The International Beer Fest is coming to town.

Taking place May 13-14 at the IX Center, the Festival will feature the largest world beer competition in the Midwest. That's right, the whole Midwest. Suck it, Sioux Falls. What.