Vatican

VATICAN CITY -- A select group of young international designers will be submitting innovative mock-ups of what an eco-friendly popemobile should look like.

For the first time, the annual Autostyle Design Competition will have a special category for a popemobile, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. The vehicle design must meet standards for low-emissions, as well as the Vatican's safety and security standards, it said.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI urged international leaders to reach a credible agreement on climate change, keeping in mind the needs of the poor and of future generations.

The pope made the remarks at his noon blessing at the Vatican Nov. 27, the day before officials from 194 countries were to begin meeting in Durban, South Africa, to discuss the next steps in reducing greenhouse gases and stopping global temperatures from rising.

VATICAN CITY -- Child abuse prevention policies depend on accountability and an unwavering commitment to children's welfare, said the Vatican's top investigator of clerical sex abuse.

"No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability," especially from the bishops, said Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

WASHINGTON -- The Vatican's top ecumenist offered a frank assessment of recent ecumenical progress and future prospects in a Washington talk Nov. 3.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Swiss-born president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said different types of divisions affect Catholic relations with the Orthodox churches and with those that were born from the Protestant Reformation, but both can be resolved with dialogue.

VATICAN CITY -- New biotechnologies raise questions in the fields of medicine, economics, ethics and philosophy, and the Vatican plans to look at all of them during a three-day conference devoted to adult stem-cell research, officials said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture partnered with NeoStem Inc., a U.S. company researching and marketing adult stem-cell therapies, to sponsor the Nov. 9-11 international conference, "Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture."

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, 70, to be the new nuncio to the United States.

In his most recent position, the Italian archbishop had served for two years as secretary general of the commission governing Vatican City. He succeeds the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi in Washington.

Just minutes after his assignment was announced Oct. 19, Archbishop Vigano told Catholic News Service he hoped to get to the United States in time for the U.S. bishops' general assembly Nov. 14-16.