Timeline of The Catholic Church - 21st Century

21st Century

• April 30, 2000 : Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina and designated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday in the General Roman Calendar, with effect from the following year.
• January 1, 2001: The 21st century and the new millennium begin. The Church solemnizes the start of the third Christian millennium by extending into part of the year 2001 the jubilee year that it observes at 25-year intervals and that, in the case of the year 2000, it called the Great Jubilee.
• January 6, 2001: John Paul II issues Novo Millennio Ineunte, a program for the Church in the new millennium, wherein he placed sanctity through a training in prayer as the most important priority of the Catholic Church in consonance with its purpose.
• January 18, 2002: Former American priest John Geoghan is convicted of child molestation and sentenced to ten years in prison, as part of the ongoing sex abuse scandal. The Geoghan case was one of the worst scandals of the Catholic Church in the USA.
• April 2, 2005: Pope John Paul II dies at the age of 84. His funeral is broadcast to every corner of the globe through the modern media. Millions of Catholic pilgrims journey to Rome to pay final respects.
• April 19, 2005: German-born Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger is elected by the College of Cardinals as Pope Benedict XVI, thus becoming the first Pope elected during the 21st century and the 3rd millennium.
• August 18, 2005: Pope Benedict XVI attends the World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, his first trip outside Italy.
• September 12, 2006: Pope Benedict XVI delivers address on Faith, Reason in University of Regensburg. Benedict maintained that in the Western world, to a large degree, only positivistic reason and philosophy are valid. A concept of reason which excludes the divine, is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures, according to Benedict. He quoted negative views of Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, regarding Islam, which several weeks after it was delivered, created violent reactions among Muslims in several parts of the world.
• June 11, 2007 Pope Benedict XVI reverted the decision of his predecessor regarding papal elections,and restored the traditional two-thirds majority required
• July 7, 2007: Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum is issued by Pope Benedict XVI explicitly liberating the Roman Missal of 1962 as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. Hopes of healing the schism between the SSPX and the Catholic Church is implied in accompanying letter to the motu proprio.
• October 28, 2007: Pope Benedict XVI authorizes the largest beatification ceremony in Church history involving 498 Spanish Martyrs who were killed during the Civil War in Spain.
• May 2008: A solemn declaration agreed on between Pope Benedict XVI and Muslims, led by Mahdi Mostafavi, stressed that genuine religion is essentially non-violent and that violence can be justified neither by reason nor by faith.
• July 2008: Pope Benedict XVI participates in Sydney Australia in the World Youth Day and announces Spain as the country to host the next one.
• January 2009: The Holy See remitted the excommunications of the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X which is criticized because one of the bishops is a holocaust-denier.