VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis greeted members of the Congolese community in Rome, borrowing words from their native languages Sunday to wish them peace and joy during an especially vibrant ceremony at St.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The daughter of a Vatican employee will represent “the pope’s team” by competing in the half marathon at the Mediterranean Games in Oran, Algeria, on Friday.
It will mark the biggest event yet for Vatican Athletics, the latest iteration of the Holy See’s longstanding promotion of sport as an instrument of dialogue, peace and solidarity.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Families from many places, including war-ravaged Ukraine, told Pope Francis their stories of joys, sorrows and hopes at an event on a stage at the Vatican Wednesday evening.
The occasion at the Vatican’s auditorium was part of events this week for the World Meeting of Families, a Catholic church tradition established by Pope John Paul II in 1994.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday blasted the violence that plagues Mexico as he mourned the slayings of two of his “brother” Jesuits who were gunned down in a remote Mexican church by apparent drug gang members.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis may have canceled his planned trip to Congo because of his bad knee, but he had a visit Tuesday from one of Congo’s brightest basketball stars who briefed him on his humanitarian efforts back home.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis canceled a planned July trip to Africa on doctors' orders because of knee problems, the Vatican said Friday, dashing hopes of the faithful there and raising further questions about the health and mobility of the 85-year-old pontiff.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial said he thanked Pope Francis on Thursday for giving scholars access to the Holy See’s World War II-era archives.
Dani Dayan, who met with Francis at the Vatican, said the pontiff described the archives’ opening as “an issue of justice.” Francis visited the memorial during a 2014 pilgrimage in Israel.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has long defended its World War II-era pope, Pius XII, against criticism that he remained silent as the Holocaust unfolded, insisting that he worked quietly behind the scenes to save lives.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — One of the principal figures in the Vatican’s bungled London real estate venture testified Monday that the Holy See would have turned a profit on its valuable investment if it hadn’t pulled its money out of a fund prematurely.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis will travel to Kazakhstan in September for an interfaith conference, a meeting that may give him a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s longtime investment banker testified Monday that he repeatedly voiced concerns about a fund that was investing in a troubled London property, but said the Holy See’s secretariat of state insisted on pursuing the deal even as it lost money.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, most of them from continents other than Europe — which dominated Catholic hierarchy for most of the church's history — and further putting his mark on the group of people who might someday elect the next pontiff.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, the archbishop of Canterbury and the leader of a the church of Scotland will together lead a prayer vigil for peace while visiting South Sudan next month, the Vatican said Saturday.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The new president of the Italian Conference of Bishops on Friday said he would launch an independent inquiry on sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Italy, but the announcement disappointed victims advocates because it will only go back 20 years.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Tuesday named a bishop in his own image, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, as the new head of the Italian bishops conference, as the Italian Catholic Church comes under mounting pressure to confront its legacy of clerical sexual abuse with an independent inquiry.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his spiritual closeness to Catholics in China, voicing hope that the church there operates in “freedom and tranquility,’’ but making no mention of a 90-year-old cardinal who was recently arrested in Hong Kong.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s sprawling financial trial may not have produced any convictions yet or any new smoking guns as prosecutors work through a first round of questioning of the 10 suspects accused of fleecing the Holy See of tens of millions of euros.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — U2 frontman Bono hailed Pope Francis for promoting “inclusivity” on Thursday as he met with the pontiff in Rome alongside students attending an educational program launched by the pope.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s financial trial took a series of surreal turns Thursday when a former suspect-turned-star witness was thrown out of the tribunal and a defendant asserted in court documents that she escorted two emissaries of Russian President Vladimir Putin into the Holy See to negotiate the return of holy relics to the Russian Orthodox Church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican cardinal testified Wednesday that Pope Francis himself ordered the ouster of the Holy See’s auditor-general, turning the tables on a scandal that had sparked questions about the Vatican’s commitment to financial transparency and accountability.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, is heading to Kyiv this week as the Holy See seeks to balance its concern for Ukrainians amid Russia's war with its efforts to keep open a channel of dialogue with Moscow.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, who has been using a wheelchair because of a bad knee, is going ahead with plans to visit Canada this summer so he can apologize in person for abuse suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The wives of two Ukrainian soldiers defending the Mariupol steel mill met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and begged him to intervene to arrange for a third-party evacuation of the troops before Russian soldiers capture or kill them.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Retired Associated Press photographer Nick Ut met Wednesday with Pope Francis and gave him a copy of his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a young Vietnamese girl running naked down the road after a napalm attack.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ willingness to work despite knee pain that has made walking nearly impossible shows other older adults that they have wisdom and experience to offer younger generations, a top Vatican cardinal said Tuesday.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis authorized spending up to 1 million euros to free a Colombian nun kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali, a cardinal testified Thursday, revealing previously secret papal approval to hire a British security firm to find the nun and secure her freedom.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has arrived at an audience in a wheelchair as his knee pain continues to limit his mobility.
Francis was wheeled into the meeting Thursday with nuns and religious superiors from around the world who are meeting in Rome.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — His appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine went unheeded. His planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was canceled. A proposed visit to Moscow?
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper he had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to try to end Russia's war in Ukraine and suggested the invasion might have been provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis gave a new mandate to his sex abuse advisory commission Friday, telling its members to work with bishops around the world to establish special welcome centers for victims and to audit the church’s progress on fighting abuse from its new perch within the Vatican.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The former director of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency testified Wednesday that Pope Francis asked him to help the Vatican secretariat of state get full control of a London property, once again putting the pope and his top deputies in the spotlight for their roles in the problematic deal.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday as the war in Ukraine and the millions of refugees it has created cast a shadow over two leaders who have long sought closer ties with Russia.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI turned 95 this past weekend, a significant milestone on its own but even more given he has now been a retired pope longer than he was a reigning one.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — On what is supposed to be Christianity's most joyful day, Pope Francis made an anguished Easter Sunday plea for peace in the “senseless” war in Ukraine and in other armed conflicts raging in the world, and voiced worry about the risk of nuclear warfare.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday invoked “gestures of peace in these days marked by the horror of war” in an Easter vigil homily in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol and three Ukrainian lawmakers.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis opened Holy Week Sunday with a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday kissed a battered Ukrainian flag that he said was brought to him from the “martyred” Ukrainian city of Bucha as he denounced the “massacre” there and called again for an end to the war.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The former head of the Vatican’s financial watchdog testified Tuesday that the agency launched an intelligence investigation into a suspicious London real estate deal after it learned about it but had no power to stop the Vatican secretariat of state from concluding it.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis heads to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta on Saturday for a pandemic-delayed weekend visit, aiming to draw attention to Europe’s migration challenge has only become more stark with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Friday made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the “deplorable” abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church's misguided missionary zeal.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis heads to Malta this weekend, with the refugee exodus from Ukraine casting a haunting backdrop to the European migration drama that for years has focused on Malta and other Mediterranean countries and the plight of desperate people who arrive on boats seeking refuge.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis allegedly authorized negotiating an exit strategy for a key figure in the Vatican’s bungled London real estate investment and was so satisfied with the outcome that he paid for a celebratory dinner at a fancy Roman fish restaurant the night the 15-million- euro payout closed, a defendant in the Vatican's extortion trial testified Wednesday.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the country’s notorious residential schools met with Pope Francis on Monday and told him of the abuses they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and school workers.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Vatican officials on Monday defended the last-minute rollout of Pope Francis’ reform of the Holy See bureaucracy while also painting it as one of the most consequential moves of his pontificate since it recognizes that any believer, male or female, can head a Vatican office.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A once-powerful cardinal testified Thursday that he donated 125,000 euros ($140,000) of Vatican money to a Sardinian diocese for purely charitable reasons, rejecting Vatican prosecutors’ claims that the money benefitted his brother who ran the charity.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has urged couples to have more children, rather than pets, and called for family-friendly government policies. So he raised eyebrows Tuesday when he revamped the Vatican's family leave policy with a new benefit giving new dads a mere three days of paid paternity leave.