US TOP COURT SIGNALS IT COULD NIX GAY MARRIAGE LAW

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Supreme Court signalled Wednesday it could throw out a US law that defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman, in a second day of hearings on the thorny issue of same-sex marriage.

For nearly two hours, the nine justices who make up the nation's highest court grilled lawyers on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- with five of them appearing to lean in favor of striking it down.

The controversial 1996 law denies married gay and lesbian couples the same federal rights and benefits that heterosexual couples take for granted, from tax breaks and welfare benefits to access to a hospitalized spouse.

The plaintiff is Edith Windsor, 83, who was ordered to pay federal inheritance taxes of $363,000 following the 2009 death of Thea Spyer, her partner of more than 40 years. The couple had married in Canada in 2007.

Under DOMA, the surviving half of a heterosexual couple would not have faced the same tax burden.

In an exchange with lawyers arguing the two sides of the case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested DOMA represented, in her view, two kinds of wedlock -- "full marriage and skim milk marriage."

Her colleague Elena Kagan went further, saying that DOMA was "infected by animus, fear and dislike."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative whose swing vote on gay rights could decide the outcome, said he was "troubled" by how the DOMA case would impact the rights of each of the 50 states to set out their own marriage laws.

Outside the court, hundreds of marriage equality supporters chanted "Edie! Edie!" as Windsor exited the stately building with her legal team and told assembled reporters: "I think it was great. I think it went beautifully."

"I thought the justices were gentle. They were direct. They asked the right questions," said the retiree, who wore a circular diamond brooch -- a de facto engagement token from Spyer from early in their relationship -- on her lapel.

"The justices asked all the questions we expected them to ask," added Windsor's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who declined to speculate on how the court would rule in the coming months.

President Barack Obama's administration initially opposed Windsor's bid to repeal DOMA as it progressed through the lower courts, where the law has already twice been ruled unconstitutional.

But the White House has since switched sides. Now it is calling for the law to be overturned, leaving DOMA to be defended by a group of Republican lawmakers, along with a coalition of religious and conservative groups.

Opponents of Windsor's stance include Republican lawmakers and Christian groups. One of their lawyers, Paul Clement, argued DOMA was constitutional in that it applied only to laws on the federal level.

On Tuesday, the court trod cautiously as it weighed the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative that saw a majority of voters in the nation's most populous state ban same-sex marriage.

While it will take several months for them to issue a ruling, several Supreme Court justices indicated Tuesday they would be in no hurry to make a verdict that could extend the right to same-sex marriage to the entire country.

Forty-one states currently ban or limit such marriages.

Legal experts cautioned Wednesday it can be hard to predict what the Supreme Court will do based on oral arguments, but Thomas Keck of Syracuse University in New York anticipated a "mixed decision" on the same-sex marriage question.

It could hold that Washington is "constitutionally required to recognize same-sex marriages from states that allow them," but at the same time decline to rule on whether other states must allow gay marriages, he told AFP.

"If the court does get to the merits (of DOMA), I think it will find DOMA's pervasive system of discrimination unconstitutional," added Elizabeth Wydra of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a Washington legal think tank.

Successive public opinion polls have indicated that a majority of Americans now accept the principle of same-sex marriage, including an overwhelming number of younger citizens.

In May last year, Obama became the first serving US president to publicly back gay marriage.

"I think it is time for the justices to examine this issue," Obama said Wednesday in an interview with Spanish-language television network Telemundo.

"States have defined marriage and the federal government has followed the lead of the states. And so my hope is that the court reaches these issues. And that we end up living in a country where everybody is treated fairly."

New pope cites grandma's folk wisdom at his first Palm Sunday

By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The new pope began Holy Week on Sunday with a sermon invoking the folk wisdom of his grandmother, further emphasizing a new-look papacy that aims to be closer to the people.
Leading his first major service since his election, Pope Francis addressed a vast crowd gathered for Palm Sunday with simple language, urging them to shun corruption and greed and reach out to "the humble, the poor, the forgotten".
Departing from his prepared text and referring to wealth, he said: "You can't take it with you, my grandmother used to say".
Since his election on March 13, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has broken with the more esoteric and, some would say, ostentatious style of his predecessor Benedict, saying he wants to move the Church closer to the poor and suffering.
"Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation," he said.
Francis has decided to hold Holy Thursday service this week in a juvenile jail on Rome's outskirts rather than in the Vatican or in a Rome Basilica, where it has been held by all his predecessor in living memory.
He has also invited simple workers, such as the Vatican gardeners and street cleaners, to attend his morning Masses in the Vatican hotel where is still living ahead of moving into the papal apartments in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
The service before some 250,000 people waving palm and olive branches in St. Peter's Square gave the new pope another opportunity to stress that he wants a Catholic Church that has been riven by scandal to be more austere and just.
Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem five days before he died. At the end of the service, Francis was driven around the square several times in an open jeep so he could be seen by more people in the huge throng, which overflowed and stretched for blocks down to the River Tiber.
The Church today, he said, like Jesus 2,000 years ago, wanted to transmit a message of hope, "especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world".
After blessing palm and olive branches - both symbols of peace - Francis, wearing red and white vestments, walked to the altar on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica to conduct the outdoor Mass.
He again urged defense of the environment, speaking of "our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbor and towards the whole of creation".
BRAZIL TRIP
Francis confirmed that he will go to Rio de Janeiro at the end of the July to take part in the Church's World Day of Youth, a gathering of Catholic young people that takes place in a different city every two years.
The new pope has inherited a Church riven by problems that include sexual abuse scandals in many countries and allegations of corruption in the central Vatican bureaucracy.
Many people have expressed a wish that Francis could give the Church and the Vatican a better image.
"We are very happy. We are praying and hoping for good things from the pope and from the Church," said Alessandra Paillalef, a fellow Argentine who came to Rome to see her countryman lead Holy Week celebrations, which end on Easter Sunday, next week.
On Saturday afternoon Francis flew by helicopter to the papal summer residence south of Rome at Castel Gandolfo, where his predecessor, now called "Pope Emeritus Benedict" has been living since he abdicated on February 28.
It was the first time in at least 600 years that a reigning pope and a former pope faced each other.
While the Vatican did not disclose what they discussed, it was likely that the conversation included problems of Vatican administration.
Before he resigned, Benedict left a secret report for Francis on the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal in which sensitive papal documents were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked to the media by his butler, Paolo Gabriele.
Last year Gabriele was arrested and sentenced by a Vatican court to 18 months in prison but Benedict pardoned him and he was freed last Christmas.
(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Pope Francis tells Benedict: "We're brothers"

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) — Pope Francis traveled Saturday to this hill town south of Rome to have lunch with his "brother" and predecessor Benedict XVI, a historic and potentially problematic melding of the papacies that has never before confronted the Catholic Church.
The two men dressed in white embraced warmly on the helipad in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo, where Benedict has been living since he stepped down Feb. 28 and became the first pope to resign in 600 years.
In a series of gestures that ensued, Benedict made clear that he considered Francis to be pope while Francis made clear he considered his predecessor to be very much a revered brother and equal. They clasped hands repeatedly, showing one another the deference owed a pope in ways that surely turned Vatican protocol upside down.
Traveling from the helipad to the palazzo, Francis sat on the right-hand side of the car, the traditional place of the pope, while Benedict sat on the left. When they entered the chapel inside the palazzo to pray, Benedict tried to direct Francis to the papal kneeler at the front of the chapel, but Francis refused.
"No, we are brothers," Francis told Benedict, according to the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi. He said Francis wanted to pray together with Benedict, so the two used a different kneeler in the pews and prayed side-by-side.
Francis also brought a gift to Benedict, an icon of the Madonna, and told him that it's known as the "Madonna of Humility."
"I thought of you," Francis told Benedict. "You gave us so many signs of humility and gentleness in your pontificate." Benedict replied: "Grazie, grazie."
Benedict wore the simple white cassock of the papacy, with a quilted white jacket over it to guard against the chill, but minus the sash and cape worn by Francis. Walking with a cane, the 85-year-old Benedict looked frail compared to the robust 76-year-old Argentine.
Outside the villa, the main piazza of Castel Gandolfo was packed with well-wishers bearing photos of both popes and chanting "Francesco! Francesco!" But the Vatican made clear they probably wouldn't see anything.

The Vatican downplayed the remarkable reunion in keeping with Benedict's desire to remain "hidden from the world" and not interfere with his successor's papacy. There was no live coverage by Vatican television, and only a short video and still photos were released after the fact.
The Vatican spokesman said the two spoke privately for 40-45 minutes, followed by lunch with the two papal secretaries, but no details were released.
All of which led to enormous speculation about what these two popes might have said to one another after making history together: Benedict's surprise resignation paved the way for the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit, and the first to call himself Francis after the 13th century friar who devoted himself to the poor, nature and working for peace.
That the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was second only to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 conclave that elected Ratzinger pope has only added to the popular imagination about how these two popes of such different style, background and priorities might get along.
Perhaps over their primo, or pasta course during Saturday's lunch, they discussed the big issues facing the church: the rise of secularism in the world, the drop in priestly vocations in Europe, the competition that the Catholic Church faces in Latin America and Africa from evangelical Pentecostal movements.
During their secondo, or second course of meat or fish, they might have gone over more pressing issues about Francis' new job: Benedict left a host of unfinished business on Francis' plate, including the outcome of a top-secret investigation into the leaks of papal documents last year that exposed corruption and mismanagement in the Vatican administration. Francis might have wanted to sound Benedict out on his ideas for management changes in the Holy See administration, a priority given the complete dysfunctional government he has inherited.
Over coffee, they might have discussed future of Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, Benedict's trusted aide who has had the difficult task of escorting his old pope into retirement and then returning to the Vatican to serve his successor in the initial rites of the office.
Gaenswein, who wept as he and Benedict made their final goodbyes to staff in the papal apartment on Feb. 28, has appeared visibly upset and withdrawn at times as he has been by Francis' side. The Vatican has said Francis' primary secretary will be Monsignor Alfred Xuereb, who had been the No. 2 secretary under Benedict.
Both Xuereb and Gaenswein were present for lunch. Start to finish, the meeting lasted about 2 ½ hours, with Benedict escorting Francis back to the helipad for the ride back to the Vatican.
Benedict's resignation — and his choices about his future — have raised the not-insignificant question of how the Catholic Church will deal with the novel situation of having one reigning and one retired pope living side-by-side, each of them called "pope," each of them wearing papal white and even sharing the same aide in Gaenswein.
Before Benedict announced his decision to be known as "emeritus pope," one of the Vatican's leading canon lawyers, the Jesuit Rev. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, penned an article suggesting that such a title would be inappropriate for Benedict since in renouncing the papacy he had "lost all the power of primacy" conferred on him by his election as pope.
The alternate title — which Vatican officials had suggested would be likely be chosen — was that of "emeritus bishop of Rome," since bishops routinely retire and are known as "emeritus bishops."
But Benedict opted instead for "emeritus pope," ''Your Holiness" and also chose to keep wearing the white cassock of the papacy, leading to questions about both his own influence on the future pontiff and whether Catholics more favorable to his traditional style might try to undermine his successor's authority and agenda by keeping their allegiance to the old pope.
Clearly aware of that potential, Benedict in his very last meeting with his cardinals on Feb. 28 pledged his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to the then-unknown future pope, who was nevertheless in the room.
Lombardi said he understood Benedict repeated that pledge of obedience to Francis on Saturday. Asked how the popes addressed one another, Lombardi demurred, saying he didn't think they addressed one another as "Your Holiness" or "Pope," saying the exchange was too familiar and warm for such titles.
After a few months in Castel Gandolfo, Benedict is to return to the Vatican to live in a converted monastery in the Vatican gardens, just a short walk from St. Peter's Basilica and the shrine devoted to the Madonna where Francis went to pray on one of his first walks as pope.
Despite Benedict's expressed intent to fade away, Francis on virtually every occasion afforded him has made clear he has no intention of letting his "venerable predecessor" disappear from memory: Francis called Benedict right after his election, urged prayers for him in his first papal Masses, and called the former Joseph Ratzinger to congratulate him on the feast of St. Joseph on March 19.
The Vatican has similarly made clear that the ex-pope hasn't completely lost interest in the matters of the church, following on television Francis's inaugural appearance on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after his election, when he charmed the crowd with a simple "Brothers and sisters, good evening."
The two men couldn't be more different in style and background: The Argentine-born Francis has made headlines with his simple gestures — no papal regalia, simple black shoes, paying his own hotel bill — and basic message that a pope's job is to protect the poor.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio worked in the slums, celebrating Masses for prostitutes and drug addicts. He plans to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass this week at a juvenile detention center, where he will wash the feet of 12 inmates in a show of humility echoing that of Jesus.
The German-born Benedict is an academic, one of the world's leading theologians who spent more than 30 years in the frescoed halls of the Vatican where he was its chief doctrinal watchdog and then its pope. His primary concern was to remind Christians in Europe of their faith and bring back a more traditional Catholic identity, and with it many of the brocaded trappings of the papacy. His Holy Thursday Masses included the traditional foot-washing, but it involved clerics at the St. John Lateran basilica.
While there is a difference in style, there is a "radical" convergence between the two men in terms of their spirituality, according to Civilta Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit magazine whose articles are approved by the Vatican before publication.
"They are two figures of the highest spirituality, whose relationship with life is completely anchored in God," the magazine wrote. "This radicalness is shown in Pope Benedict's shy and kind bearing, and in Pope Francis it is revealed by his immediate sweetness and spontaneity."

Nicole Winfield reported from Vatican City.