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“We would never allow this to happen if this were any other physical illness,” said Kennedy, who represented a congressional district in Rhode Island for 16 years before stepping down in 2011.

This is the first time the U.S. public has been able to read the fine print of a deal that will govern issues related to commerce, intellectual property and human and labor rights for 40 percent of the global economy—if it clears substantial hurdles being erected in Washington.

While Francis has hoped to set an example, rejecting the pomp of a papal palace for modest living quarters, Curia cardinals are said to live in “princely dwellings” around 10 times the size of the pope’s residence. One Italian monsignor allegedly expanded his own apartment by breaking down a wall into the home of his neighbor, an elderly priest who was in the hospital at the time.

The bishops did not downplay those issues which still divide Lutherans and Catholics, but wanted to “work from the vantage point of where we agree rather than those things which divide us.”

Cardinal Turkson said the measure of success for the Paris summit on climate change, which begins Nov. 30, is “the extent to which people and groups are coming on board.” He noted there is substantial public awareness about “what is at stake.”

Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who published documents stolen from Pope Benedict XVI’s private office by his butler, has a new book out based on more leaked documents. “Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican,” was scheduled for release in English Nov. 5.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the spokesman, issued a statement on Nov. 4 about the investigations involving the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. The office, known by its Italian acronym APSA, handles the Vatican’s investment portfolio and its real estate holdings.

“The trend is like a mix of religion and politics,” Cardinal Charles Bo said, raising fresh questions about the country’s future at a crucial point on Myanmar’s journey from military dictatorship to a functioning democracy.

“We cannot ignore that we are co-responsible for all around the world,” Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga said. “We cannot be closed down in our own borders and looking only to our own places because all of us are citizens of the same earth and all of us have a common home.”

But bishops worry ongoing political strife and ethnic incitement could blight the visit.