Pope Benedict XVI will present the first Ratzinger Prize to three European theologians later this month, organizers said at the Vatican on Tuesday.

The award promotes dialogue between theology and culture at a time of "flagrant divorce" between the two, said Giuseppe della Torre, rector of Rome's Catholic LUMSA university.

Security forces locked down central Rome on Thursday as world leaders including the Israeli and Palestinian presidents gathered for celebrations to mark the founding of the Italian republic in 1946.

The Afghan, Argentinian and Russian presidents were also among the more than 80 international delegations taking part, along with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone, author of the film scores for "Spaghetti Westerns" starring Clint Eastwood in the 1960s, will head up the jury for the Rome film festival, organizers said on Wednesday.

Morricone, 82, who started out as a jazz trumpeter, has also worked with celebrated directors Brian De Palma and Giuseppe Tornatore and has received two Grammy Awards and two Golden Globes in a career spanning half a century.

A distraught Italian father who left his baby in a hot car for five hours after forgetting to drop her off at daycare may face manslaughter charges after the 22-month old died early Sunday.

Elena was barely breathing when her father, Lucio Petrizzi, rushed her to hospital on Wednesday. The professor of veterinary medicine said he was convinced he had dropped her off at daycare on his way to work.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Thursday returned to Beirut from the Vatican, after participating in the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II on Sunday.

Flanked by President Michel Suleiman’s representative, caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, al-Rahi told reporters at the Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport that the minister’s latest decision to refrain from participation in the new cabinet reflected his “culture of sacrifice and giving,” lauding Baroud for “putting public welfare above all private interests.”

Pope Benedict XVI bestowed the status of "blessed" on his predecessor John Paul II on Sunday in front of a cheering crowd of over a million people, putting the late pope on the path to sainthood.

A giant banner bearing a youthful portrait of the Polish pontiff was unveiled over the facade of Saint Peter's Basilica after Benedict pronounced the formula of beatification just six years after John Paul's death.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is scheduled to travel to Rome on Friday to attend the beatification ceremony of Pope John Paul II, which will be held on Sunday at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

The patriarch is set to hold talks with a number of Italian officials on his visit including President Giorgio Napolitano and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

An MTV crew was assaulted on Friday in the Beirut southern suburb of Ghobeiri while it was filming a construction violation on land owned by the Holy See.

As reporter George Eid and cameraman Roger Hanna were starting to film the site, they were attacked by a number of locals who shouted at them and asked them to stop filming before shooting in the air to terrorize them.

It's safe to say that the Emperor Nero -- the subject of a major new exhibition and archaeology trail that opened in the Roman Forum this week -- has always had something of an image problem.

He has gone down in the history books as the man who had his domineering mother Agrippina killed, kicked his pregnant wife Poppaea to death and -- as legend would have it -- played his lyre on a hill while Rome burnt below him.

Two musicals about the life of Pope John Paul II, including one that covers his childhood under Nazi rule in Poland, will be staged for Roman Catholic Church youth festivities in Madrid this August, organizers said Tuesday.

The plays are among 295 cultural events during the August 16-21 World Youth Day gathering, which is to be attended by Pope Benedict XVI, the event's cultural programming chief, Carla Diez de Rivera, told a news conference.