Pope Francis

Christianity’s most joyous feast day is being celebrated worldwide with worshippers spaced apart in pews and singing choruses of “Hallelujah” through face coverings for the second Easter Sunday in a row

Pope Francis is urging his coronavirus-weary flock to not lose hope even through the continued “dark months” of the pandemic.

For a second time in the pandemic, Pope Francis is leading Holy Week ceremonies without the usual crowds of pilgrims and tourists

GLAAD and other groups representing members of the LGBTQ community responded swiftly to the Vatican’s decree Monday that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.”

The Vatican has decreed that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions, saying that God “cannot bless sin.”

Pope Francis says he weighed the risks of a high-profile trip to Iraq during the coronavirus pandemic

Pope Francis has met with the father of a Alan Kurdi, a 3-year old Syrian boy who drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea and whose image drew global attention to the plight of refugees fleeing to Europe.

Pope Francis has urged Iraq’s Christians to forgive the injustices committed against them by Islamic extremists

Pope Francis and Iraq’s top Shiite cleric have delivered a powerful message of peaceful coexistence, urging Muslims to embrace Iraq’s long-beleaguered Christian minority during a historic meeting

Pope Francis has urged Iraqis to treat their Christian brothers as a precious resource to protect, not an “obstacle” to eliminate as he opens the first-ever papal visit to Iraq

Infectious disease experts are expressing concern about Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Iraq

The French doctor who discovered the genetic basis of Down syndrome but spent his career advocating against abortion as a result of prenatal diagnosis has taken his first major step to possible sainthood

Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly allow women to do more things during Mass, granting them access to the altar, while reaffirming they cannot be priests

Pope Francis says he’s praying for the dead in the U.S. Capitol rioting and has appealed for calm to prevail in the United States.

Pope Francis has told a private Italian broadcaster that he was “astonished” by the mob attack at the U.S. Capitol.

Pope Francis has proclaimed an upcoming year dedicated to the family.

Pope Francis has made a Christmas appeal to nations to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are available for all

Pope Francis says the Christmas season provides reason for hope amid the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of the U.S. police killing of George Floyd and is blasting COVID-19 skeptics and the media that spread their conspiracies

Pope Francis has raised 13 new cardinals to the highest rank in the Catholic hierarchy during a formal ceremony marked from beginning to end by the coronavirus pandemic

Five NBA players have met with Pope Francis at the Vatican to discuss social justice

Joe Biden will become the second Catholic U.S. president, 60 years after Democrat John F. Kennedy became the first member of the faith to hold the office.

The Vatican’s report into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has raised uncomfortable issues the Holy See will have to confront going forward, chief among them what it will do about current and future clergy who use their power to sexually abuse adults

Pope Francis is vowing to rid the Catholic Church of sexual abuse and offering prayers to victims of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Pope Francis is halting his public general audiences and will limit participation at Christmas and other upcoming Masses amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Italy and the Vatican

Pope Francis has named 13 new cardinals, including Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who would become the first Black U.S. prelate to earn the coveted red cap.

Questions swirled Thursday about the origins of Pope Francis’ bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pontiff while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.

Pope Francis has met with Cardinal George Pell, warmly welcoming him for a private audience in the Apostolic Palace after the cardinal’s sex abuse conviction and acquittal in Australia

Pope Francis has given his blessing to a new Vatican think tank that is seeking to prevent the Mafia and organized crime groups from exploiting the image of the Virgin Mary for their own illicit ends

During the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis has been deprived of the crowds, foreign travel and visits to poor neighborhoods that have so defined his papacy

Pope Francis called George Floyd by name, twice, and offered support to an American bishop who knelt in prayer during a Black Lives Matter protest.

The confirmed global death toll from the COVID-19 virus has surpassed at least 400,000 fatalities

Pope Francis is calling for solidarity the world over to confront the “epochal challenge” posed by the coronavirus pandemic

The Vatican says Pope Francis has created a new commission of experts to examine whether women can be deacons, an ordained role in the Catholic Church currently reserved for men

Pope Francis has celebrated Palm Sunday Mass without the public, since the traditional ceremony in St. Peter’s Square was scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic

Praying in a desolately empty St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis has likened the coronavirus pandemic to a storm laying bare people’s illusions that they can be self-sufficient

A coughing Pope Francis told pilgrims gathered for the traditional Sunday blessing that he is canceling his participation at a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside because of a cold

Officials say Pope Francis is sick and he skipped a planned Mass with Rome clergy across town on Thursday

Pope Francis has cautioned against “unfair” solutions aimed at ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians

Roman Catholic priests, deacons and bishops across the Amazon are voicing surprise, resignation and reluctant acceptance of Pope Francis’ refusal to allow married men to be ordained priests.

Pope Francis has stopped short of allowing the ordination of married men as priests in the Amazon, where there are severe shortages of clergy, calling instead for ordained ministers to come to the region and work alongside lay preachers.

The Palazzo Migliori, named after the family who donated it to the Roman Catholic Church, had served as the headquarters for an order of religious women, who vacated it last year. But the Calasanziane order that occupied the building for 70 years and used it to help and care for young single mothers has since relocated to another location. One…

The Vatican cardinal who co-authored a bombshell book with Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI reaffirming priestly celibacy on Tuesday strongly denied he manipulated the retired pope into publishing.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has broken his silence to reaffirm the value of priestly celibacy, co-authoring a bombshell book at the precise moment that Pope Francis is weighing whether to allow married men to be ordained to address the Catholic priest shortage.

Pope Francis has apologized for swatting away the hand of a woman who tugged his arm as the head of the Roman Catholic Church greeted pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on New Year’s Eve. In video of the incident, a woman reaches out, grabs his hand and then jerks him forcefully toward her. In his impromptu remarks Wednesday, Francis...

Pope Francis offered a Christmas message of hope Wednesday against darkness that cloaks conflicts and relationships in large parts of the world from the Middle East to the Americas to Africa. The pope told tens of thousands of tourists, pilgrims and Romans gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the annual Christmas Day message that “the light of Christ is...

Pope Francis assured the faithful on Christmas Eve that God loves everyone — “even the worst of us” — as he celebrated the joyous birth of Christ after a less-than-joyful year of scandals and opposition. With a choir singing the classic Christmas hymn “The First Noel,” Francis processed down the center aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica late Tuesday and unveiled…

Pope Francis is warning that “rigidity” in living out the Christian faith is creating a “minefield” of hatred and misunderstanding. Francis called for Vatican bureaucrats to embrace change during his annual Christmas greetings to the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See. His message Saturday appeared aimed at conservative and traditionalist Catholics who have voiced increasing opposition...

Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican’s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of “pontifical secrecy” has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.

The Japanese bishops’ conference launched a nationwide investigation into sexual abuse of women and children this year, responding to the Vatican’s demand for an urgent response to the global crisis. The results haven’t been disclosed. Similar studies have been carried out by the U.S., German and Dutch churches.

The bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Buffalo has resigned following widespread criticism over how he handled allegations of clergy sexual misconduct. Pope Francis has accepted Bishop Richard Malone’s resignation and named the bishop of Albany, New York, to run the Buffalo diocese temporarily until a permanent replacement is found.

A tiny wooden relic that some Christians believe to be part of Jesus’ manger arrived Saturday in its permanent home in the biblical city of Bethlehem 1,400 years after it was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope. Cheerful crowds greeted the ornately encased relic with much fanfare before it entered the Franciscan Church of St. Catherine next...

Thousands of people who were gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional Sunday on-the-dot-of-noon appearance by Pope Francis were watching for the window of the Apostolic Palace to be thrown open so they could listen to the pope’s remarks and receive his blessing. But after seven minutes, people were looking at each other quizzically: no pope? Then Francis popped...

U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to create a new national sex-abuse hotline run by an independent entity, a decision that represents one of the church’s most tangible steps yet in confronting its sex-abuse crisis. The hotline, which would field allegations that bishops committed abuse or covered it up, would take complaints by telephone and through an online link. It’s supposed...

Pope Francis said Saturday that abortion can never be condoned, even when the fetus is gravely sick or likely to die, and urged doctors and priests to support families to carry such pregnancies to term. Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored anti-abortion conference, Francis said the opposition to abortion isn’t a religious issue but a human one. “Is it licit to throw...

Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 prisoners Thursday and urged them to serve one another as brothers, as he ushered in the solemn pre-Easter rituals made more poignant this year following the devastation of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral. Francis travelled to a prison in Velletri, outside Rome, for the Holy Thursday service that re-enacts the biblical story of Christ...

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Los Angeles auxiliary bishop, Monsignor Alexander Salazar, following allegations of misconduct with a minor in the 1990s, officials said Wednesday.

Mark Wahlberg says he hopes God will forgive him for his turn as a porn star in the 1997 film “Boogie Nights.” Wahlberg told the Chicago Tribune ahead of an event with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich on Friday that he hopes “that God is a movie fan and also forgiving” because he says he’s made “some poor choices” in the...

Prince Charles has given Pope Francis a picnic basket full of tea and chocolate, sheepishly admitting “It’s impossible to know what to get Your Holiness!”...
Charles and his wife, Camilla, offered the gift at the end of a half-hour meeting Tuesday at the Vatican, the final day of their four-day tour through Italy as part of a Brexit-inspired fence-mending effort to...

Members of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory board vowed Sunday to press ahead with their work even without abuse survivors on the panel following the resignation of a respected child advocate....
The commission wrapped up a plenary Sunday saying it would “find new ways” to ensure people who were abused by clergy shape and inform its work. But no specifics were...

Pope Francis has some advice for American Catholics struggling to choose a president: Study the issues, pray, and then vote your conscience....
Francis was asked Sunday en route home from Azerbaijan how he would counsel the American faithful who are being asked to choose between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump....
Francis said he would never interfere in an electoral campaign,...

Pope Francis chastised the political decisions and skewed ideologies that make weapons easily accessible, while aid distribution faces numerous obstacles, NBC News reported. He was speaking at a United Nations World Food program event Monday and told the audience that weapons circulate the world with “brazen” freedom. The pope’s remarks came one day after the bloodbath in an Orlando nightclub...

Before celebrating Mass with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the 2015 World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis visited prisoners at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia. Francis sat down in a chair constructed by the prisoners, smiled, gave a thumbs up then shared a message of redemption with the inmates.

Cuban President Raul Castro received a warm welcome at the Vatican Sunday from Pope Francis, who played a key role in the breakthrough between Washington and Havana aimed at restoring U.S.-Cuban diplomatic ties.

Pope Francis expressed his condolences on the passing of Cardinal Francis George in a telegram to Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich.

Adding to angry comments about the Pope Francis’ description of the Ottoman-era killing of Armenians as genocide, Turkey’s prime minister said Wednesday that the pontiff has joined “an evil front” plotting against Turkey, The Associated Press reported. Ahmet Davutoglu made the comments at an event in Ankara outlining the ruling party’s platform for June parliamentary elections and presenting its candidates....

Pope Francis on Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the slaughter of Armenians by calling the massacre by Ottoman Turks “the first genocide of the 20th century” and urging the international community to recognize it as such. Turkey immediately responded by recalling its ambassador and accusing Francis of spreading hatred and “unfounded claims.”...
Francis issued the pronouncement during a Mass in...